The Serpent swallowed hard and looked Eve squarely in the eye,
“Do not worry oh first woman of many,
I may be tempting you with forbidden fruit
But they will soon forget your lust and realise
That Adam’s sin was greater
And how they shall talk and will not defend his honour
You will be blameless, they shall all whisper
Of how I corrupted him.
Ian D. Hall 2013
Castle Cornet stood proud in the afternoon Channel Island sun. The centuries old
And worn facade that had withstood civil hostilities in the household
The Emperor, the writing of Hugo as he gazed down enquiringly from his exile and to
Those whose heinous crimes and morally tattered flag that still live in the minds of Guernsey folk.
The walls shook and trembled at our first meeting where I asked you the time
As you walked, wandered past me, youthful hips wiggled and laughed.
A sly scenic smile upon your lips that were three months older than mine
I tucked Kerouac into my back pocket, a set of pouches stitched together in jeans that already
Held thirty dollars in loose change, a bus ticket that was never checked
By the young black driver who just gave me a smile as he wished
Me a good evening and was amused when I answered back with an English accent.
A chocolate bar, half eaten, evidence of the journey I had taken to find you.
Kerouac groaned as he span in his grave to see his work becoming
Lost in the back of my trousers.
I always looked north, a force of habit I allowed myself
As I took shelter from the rain and driving incessant wind that hung over
The valley and clung like a finely woven tight spider’s web around my throat on the hill.
I never went to the other side of the town and looked south
Even though my oldest friend lived in that direction.
My heart was beyond the boundary of the city, a village in all but name
As the Cathedral grew even out of the densest mist coming off the rivers.
I found peace in Ginsberg County without the aid of new patois and peyote to bring forth
Dreams. No hard beer or soft women from the broken Morrison’s Hotel to keep words flowing,
All I was left with was the terms of a contract not yet signed. Kerouac yawned and smiled
With his teeth showing, baring at me across the table, daring me to join in some inspired anarchic
Game, a ritual, a joyful disease that saw leaflets dropped and new words learned.
Keep the flag flying high, the dream alive whilst offering me a full glass of dirty Bourbon.
I have the familiarity of a journey
Yet to be taken, yet one step away from you and drive
Deeper into my Internal Haze. It is voyage,
A tumble through what remains of what is to come as
you go and start and star in a wonderful life…
I cannot hold on to you.
I would rather drown a thousand times than let you throw me
A ring of comfort, a sign of help I badly want to hold because I know that in the end
I may well be then on higher ground away from the raging tempest
Is it just merely a light that once dazzled now that fades
Or is the beauty that once was depicted in original portraits
That resides in your house of empty rooms, now vacant of ever feeling
The subtle despair of a memory that parades
Throughout your unblemished and unfulfilled and uptight straight
Mind. No I don’t mind! You carry on stealing
And hammering in those nails of self-doubt and interest bearing,
Ever increasing moments of self-loathing.
You can’t hate me anymore than I do
And yet even in the darkness I know it’s true and I find myself caring
The woman looked at me and with scorn in her voice said out loud
“You say you are a writer, yet you say you were bought up in Birmingham,
Ha…it’s brought not bought you fool.” She sounded angry and proud
And I just smiled with a glint in my eyes as I tried to explain I was found next to a dram
…Well a bottle really of finest malt and a packet of 20 Silk Cut fags
Which lay on the shelf of the local Co-op on aisle three.
The people who bought me had had their own shopping bags
He stands smiling infront of the eager audience
That had actually paid to see him perform
His mimicry, his jokes and the classic risqué songs.
He could have sold out for weeks as his talent at the time was unsurpassed
Holding them spellbound as each well-worked line was cast.
His battered bowler hat, tipped towards the ladies on purpose
And slightly covering the blood shot eye (but not the saucy grin)
That had appeared after a drunken night
In which he had forgotten the punch line
Two English men abroad, eccentric country, drunk and elegiac
Appear and feel out of place as they sit drinking whisky
In a hotel bar with little ambience and a little hostility, with their hosts drinking nothing
More than copious amounts of coffee and curious looking tea.
The two written off poets watch with a grin as the waiters and bar tenders
All dressed in company suits and corresponding company smiles
As they reposition back and forth and taking orders to the timing of low piano keys
Like Liberace, so loud in an elegant casual style.