Flower Child
Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 1:28 am
You were so beautiful,
but, at that time, so was I:
I smiled for you, and only you,
and knew it couldn't last.
The past is a foreign country
and we will never see it again.
Memories of who and what and when
are sharp as diamonds,
sharp as the knife
I have learned to carry.
I could never marry
although sorely tempted
as long as you were alive,
as long as there was still an outside chance;
you have led me a merry dance
among your last three husbands,
each one richer than the last.
I recall the edgy past
and the railway station at Vincennes
and the look of madness in your eyes,
dressed all in white, a flush on your cheeks,
blue-eyed, blonde, adorable.
Within weeks, back in England,
you married some idiot aristocrat,
"O Darling, I will always love you!!"
and that, my dear, was that.
I went off to the war in Ireland
half-cocked, and then fully committed,
and later, when it was permitted,
you ｗrote to me in that dreary prison
where I spent five years;
there were fresh tears
on the mauve scented envelopes
but you never once came
(you were now on Hubby Number Two)
although you said you flew
to Bali and to Marrakesh.
Sweet dreams are made of this:
champagne, cocaine, the early Stones.
I can feel it in my bones --
So lovely, so lonely.
We shall sail to Majorca,
then ski in Gstaad.
You were the best thing I ever had.
I remember the metallic sharpness of the pain;
I doubt I shall ever feel it again.
The hard dumb beauty of fleeting youth
has no answer, no resolution,
except in death or suicide.
Many of us fatcats now reside
in elite sequestered quarters,
with or without our first-shot wives
and sometimes sons and daughters.
A bit of golf in the forenoon,
a glance at our jolly accounts,
then a long lunch in the clubhouse.
Mr. Taxman, you can never trace
the enigma of my strange arrival,
the stigma of a shark's survival.
I shall allow the sun to rise and go.
Let you rise, red ball, I cannot stop you.
I cling tight to the earth with prehensile toes.
Anything goes. Are ye drunk, says a voice from Heaven.
Is that you, God, talking to me at last?
Nah, it's the hum of the radiators,
and the ghosts of longdead aviators
in this lonely reckless room.
I can no longer zoom in on my life,
I don't believe in anything any more.
as I stand, fat and unlovely,
here upon the ocean shore,
watching the waves come in,
watching the waves come in, go out.
The sea, I have decided, is futile,
and so is so much else.
The guns in the street go pop-pop-pop.
Nowadays, really, nothing is new.
I remember the platform at Vincennes,
the white dress, the flush on your cheeks,
but nowadays nothing is new.
Living goes on until you stop:
I know. I knew.
but, at that time, so was I:
I smiled for you, and only you,
and knew it couldn't last.
The past is a foreign country
and we will never see it again.
Memories of who and what and when
are sharp as diamonds,
sharp as the knife
I have learned to carry.
I could never marry
although sorely tempted
as long as you were alive,
as long as there was still an outside chance;
you have led me a merry dance
among your last three husbands,
each one richer than the last.
I recall the edgy past
and the railway station at Vincennes
and the look of madness in your eyes,
dressed all in white, a flush on your cheeks,
blue-eyed, blonde, adorable.
Within weeks, back in England,
you married some idiot aristocrat,
"O Darling, I will always love you!!"
and that, my dear, was that.
I went off to the war in Ireland
half-cocked, and then fully committed,
and later, when it was permitted,
you ｗrote to me in that dreary prison
where I spent five years;
there were fresh tears
on the mauve scented envelopes
but you never once came
(you were now on Hubby Number Two)
although you said you flew
to Bali and to Marrakesh.
Sweet dreams are made of this:
champagne, cocaine, the early Stones.
I can feel it in my bones --
So lovely, so lonely.
We shall sail to Majorca,
then ski in Gstaad.
You were the best thing I ever had.
I remember the metallic sharpness of the pain;
I doubt I shall ever feel it again.
The hard dumb beauty of fleeting youth
has no answer, no resolution,
except in death or suicide.
Many of us fatcats now reside
in elite sequestered quarters,
with or without our first-shot wives
and sometimes sons and daughters.
A bit of golf in the forenoon,
a glance at our jolly accounts,
then a long lunch in the clubhouse.
Mr. Taxman, you can never trace
the enigma of my strange arrival,
the stigma of a shark's survival.
I shall allow the sun to rise and go.
Let you rise, red ball, I cannot stop you.
I cling tight to the earth with prehensile toes.
Anything goes. Are ye drunk, says a voice from Heaven.
Is that you, God, talking to me at last?
Nah, it's the hum of the radiators,
and the ghosts of longdead aviators
in this lonely reckless room.
I can no longer zoom in on my life,
I don't believe in anything any more.
as I stand, fat and unlovely,
here upon the ocean shore,
watching the waves come in,
watching the waves come in, go out.
The sea, I have decided, is futile,
and so is so much else.
The guns in the street go pop-pop-pop.
Nowadays, really, nothing is new.
I remember the platform at Vincennes,
the white dress, the flush on your cheeks,
but nowadays nothing is new.
Living goes on until you stop:
I know. I knew.
