A circular movement of books you won’t need
From one pop-up shop to another
Highbrow Lowlife Literati
Call this ‘iceberg’ Culture –
(Titanic was ‘unsinkable’
Now it is a Musical)
Poetry in love with its own process
Novels that proceed to cannibalise their contents
Christmastime Anthologies compressed to doorstop slabs
(Tote those books and buff your abs –
Or have them ‘take a hike’)
Reviewers review each other’s books –
As Christmas ‘critics’ they earn more
Than authors – who with open beaks
Tweet beneath the food-chain of such vultures
(Can Literature be camouflage for drunks?
Narcissus in its mirror ‘nuts’ himself?)
Perusing books of a Musical bent
To which the bard Wild Bill
Shakespeare ventured some assent:
‘Now is the winter of our Disco Tent
Made glorious in ‘Moroder’s Donna Summer’
Or icy Murder-Mystery contained
In a Penguin Presentation
Scandinavian Cardboard coffin-ette?
(For those unquiet ‘at-homes’ among relations)
Or ‘Ghostly London’ ‘like an inert gas’
Leaks from Filth Street’s underpass
Nostalgic fragrant Soho flowers
That briefly bloomed on bad ideas
Alcohol and methedrine might mix
Cocktails of creative artifice –
So much ‘old rope’ that binds
Reckless self-expression
Into a fast and loose ‘Profession’ –
Some spot beneath this heap of hemp
My ‘Meditations’
Claiming it Alternative to multi-medications
For modest people patronised by London
Where fame and making money make most sense
Give Travel Books to those
Insular peers who now appal –
Perhaps it’s in Nepal
Himalayan levitation
Gives rise to some humility after all
But surely this writing business is no lark?
Believing your own wiki – repeating it commercially
If not droning on to the B.B.C. then another Pod-cast canary –
It’s dark!
A castle of mirrors cast by Narcissus
Where writers exist on each other’s esteem –
It’s steam!
The way of the world is not the Way
While the Way runs through the world
Often the world turns away
This does not necessitate great learning
When seasons change according to the world
The way of the world has great need of the Way
And if you seek consoling books of ‘Wisdom’
In one quiet hour this Christmas-Tide
They are shelved at the very back of the shop
Where likewise you may find
‘Mysteries of Loch Ness’
‘I Was A Flying Saucer Teenage Bride’
.
Bernard Saint
Illustration: Claire Palmer
.