i.m. Jackie Collins, 21.9.15
Barbara Cartland was right
though no one wants to admit it:
look, young Satan’s having a field day
in that non-stop party
of studs, tits, and fucking in public places;
his smarmy face is everywhere.
It was so glamorous !
Precisely. Peer under the surface,
and its broken-hearted
rank with betrayal…look deeper
and it’s rape, it’s anal—
then (why not, anything goes)
it’s paedophile
rippling in its infernal rings
of Masonic entitlement,
a whole culture of egotistical lying
now even the washing machine
is on spin, you know; crammed
to overflowing—
How naïve we were !
Worshipping the Golden Calf of Sex
we didn’t see the distraction
we couldn’t name the distortion
while it slid in like a snake
into every orifice, everything.
Sympathy for the Devil, hey
long live the Satanic 1970’s
fresh-faced and idiotic
dry ice suffusing the stage
waiting for another Black Sabbath.
‘You can chew men up and spit them out !’
parrot The Diabolo Sisters
uglier than ever, photographed together;
success is truth, truth is a bestseller.
We all bought it. But only Cartland
in fifteen seconds of live TV
said it like it was:
‘What you’re writing is evil’
but we were laughing her to scorn.
He was laughing, for sure !
What did it all mean ? Power,
not love, not even respect,;
revenge, abuse, child-murder/sacrifice
—how bad does it get ?
Hell on Earth, darling.
Farewell Jackie, farewell Joan
Good night ladies…
even Lou, or Jeremy
with Jack and Jill, Mick and John;
how naïve we were,
held in thrall
we sold our souls
in the name of freedom,
in the name of a painless paradise
for fuck all.
Jay Ramsay
September 21-22, 2015
Uplands, Stroud
Illustration Nick Victor