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Poetry Magnum Opus

Above the grocer's store (re-post)


douglas

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Above the Grocer’s Store

 

you used to make me run downstairs

to the grocer's store below your apartment

- after we'd made love -

to buy you cigarettes and chocolate

 

and i remember how beautifully ugly

the autumnal streets of London used to look

as i'd rush along the pavements

from your front door

 

litter and rusty leaves racing across the grey

the brown flat expanse of the park opposite

lined in the distance with the skeletal silhouettes

of old English oaks

 

and the bleak vapour trails from passing aeroplanes

adorning the brittle pale blue sky

like the elegant patterns on your pretty

Alfred Meakin bone china

 

i'd always enter the store smiling and smelling of sex

and Mr. Naidoo would always grin at me knowingly

placing the 20 Silk Cut cigarettes and Lindt chocolate

on the counter before i'd said a word

 

then on the busy street again

the cold air catching in my throat as i'd

rush back to you ecstatically

bumping into strangers as i dodged through the fruit sellers

 

re-entering the apartment was always my favourite part

the perfumed smoke from the incense

the heat from the radiators

The Cure playing loudly on the cd player

 

and your outstretched tattooed arms

welcoming me back into the sultry masculinity

of their warm and secure

embrace

To receive love, you have to give it...

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Concrete, vivid, and perfectly clear. Leaves nothing to the imagination because it is all SO definite. Great stuff: Meakin, Lindt, Silk Cut, and Cure. I like this method!

 

Just one question. I saw the English "vapour", so did you mean "aeroplanes", or is really "areoplanes"? (line #13)

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I like the mood and essence created by the actions of the N. We know right away who's in charge, using sex as bribery. I see the wet streets of London and the knowing smile of the vendor, the hurried return, chocolates and cigarettes the offering, the dubious hero bringing home necessities. Love in the afternoon. Makes me wonder how long this habit will last. Deftly done! Thanks, Paco

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Sex in London is just so-o-o-o much different than sex in California! Or Iowa, or most of the 48. Alaska and Hawaii don't really count: they are weird appendages. Speaking of which, they are nice to have ....

Drown your sorrows in drink, by all means, but the real sorrows can swim

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  • 2 weeks later...

thank you for your interesting and kind comments gentlemen - much appreciated!

dcmarti1 thank you for spotting my typo!

To receive love, you have to give it...

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  • 2 weeks later...

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