Friday, June 08, 2012

Happy Birthday Bro

Happy 40th Birthday to my amazing brother Michael who features in several poems in Double Helix, and for whom the sequence "Arcadian Suite" is dedicated.


THE CRYSTAL PALACE (from "Arcadian Suite")
 
"The arcade is a street of lascivious commerce only; it is wholly adapted to arousing desires."

-- Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project --

The site of youthful addictions. Perhaps a Parnassus, or Fortress of Solitude. But only when school was skipped, before the crowds arrived. Mall rations, tokenism at best, anniversary adversaries.

So revel without pause. That brief magic moment before it was all brought home. Colours as candy, the rotting as subliminal, darkness at the centre of town. Exercision. Eye or hand, a quarter nation.

No pleasure without fraternity. Two-player team-ups with the lines drawn religiously. Paying to fight, just like a colony. Queen Elizabeth II confrontations. Cain my brother, Cain my enabeler.

No comments: