After dinner in New York

The two men remain at their table in the restaurant long after the other diners have left. Umberto the proprietor would also like to shut up shop and go home, but you don’t argue with customers like these, and in any case he anticipates being well paid for the inconvenience. The food is good. Joe attacks it with his usual greed and uncouthness; Charlie is more abstemious. During the meal, Joe reminisces volubly about old times, and when they are alone in the room, the two talk business. Eventually Charlie excuses himself to go to the lavatory. He contemplates his reflection in the mirror above the washbasin as he rinses his hands and slicks back his hair. He is only in his early thirties, but his face looks much older: a result of the pressures of his work. The livid scar down his cheek, which gives his right eyelid a permanent and sinister droop, aches with the tension, but he forces himself to ignore it. He bears the nickname of  “Lucky”, which he dislikes: his success has been due to careful planning and determined application, not to luck. He glances at his watch: it’s three o’clock.There is the sharp retort of pistol shots. Charlie retreats into one of the cubicles, where he waits a short while before pulling the chain. Only then does he venture back into the restaurant, where he finds his careful planning has once again paid off: Joe is dead.

Under the Hill - Over the Hill

Look, you might think me very old-fashioned, but I always understood there were certain formalities to be gone through on these occasions. You should tell me your name and then boldly challenge me to come forth and defend my hoard: not try to sneak in like you’ve just done. So what is your name? Tristram? Oh, SIR Tristram! I do apologise: no offence intended. And my name? Well, men once called me Chrysophylax: Chrysophylax the Golden, whose wings beshadowed the sun. Rather poetic, don’t you think? If a touch overblown. My real name, of course, I couldn’t possibly pronounce in your language, so I won’t even try. And while we’re on the subject, Sir Tristram: that sword you’re swinging about; does it have a name too? No? not even something crude and vulgar, like “Skullsplitter”? Sad. In my younger days, the warriors who came to challenge me all had swords with names; and some were supposed to have ancient lineage, made by the dwarves or whatever, or were even said to be magical. Absolute tosh, of course; but still quite romantic. Ah well; times change.
Now, if we want to do this properly, you should challenge me to fight. Denounce me as a thief and murderer, and tell me you’re going to kill me and take away my ill-gotten gains. But I must point out that, although the accusation is by and large true, I haven’t actually done any plundering and slaughtering for a great many years. It was all a very long time ago; and in any event, I don’t see why it gives you any right to take my treasure for yourself. Or you could be more up-to-date, and talk about the serious deflationary effects of keeping all this gold locked away out of circulation, and how international liquidity would be greatly improved by releasing it onto the world markets ….. What? You’ve never even heard of economics, or monetary theory? No, clearly not. Forget about it; it’s my fault. I just presumed things out there must be more advanced than they actually are. Heigh-ho.
Moving on from there: may I ask, Sir Tristram, why you decided to come? Because dragon-fighting is a game for young warriors, or at least it was. Teenage heroes: many of whom, frankly, were just kids with more guts than sense. Don’t say they’re letting the oldies in on it nowadays: that would NOT be a great idea! I’m no expert in humans, I admit; but it’s obvious you’re not exactly in the first flush of youth. Take the way you swung that sword at me when you came in; quite an effort, wasn’t it? I can tell you’re not as fast as you once were. Shoulders getting stiff, are they? Bit of the old back trouble? Knees start to hurt if you stay en garde too long? And maybe the mailcoat feels rather tight around the waist, but getting a bigger one would be too much of an admission? So what made you come here, and try to get your hands on my treasure? Do you need the money? Or are you trying to recapture the glories of your youth: prove to yourself you can still do it? Or perhaps a bit of both? That’s my suspicion anyway.Now don’t get offended; I quite understand; because I’m getting old too. I’m not sure quite how old, but it must be hundreds of your years, if not thousands. But the notion that dragons are immortal is mythical. We age, just like everyone else, though it takes much longer. Look at me: I haven’t been outside this cave for I don’t know how long. I’m amazed anyone even remembered I was here. And these wings, which once beshadowed the sun; I don’t know whether they’d fly at all now. Not so much golden as rusty these days! Hah!
So there you have it: we’re both of us past our best, aren’t we? All washed up. Headed for the scrap-heap. Here we both are, together in my lair under the hill, but at the same time we’re over the hill! That’s a nice ironic little paradox for you, isn’t it?
I’m not going to fight you, Sir Tristram. Maybe I’d beat you, maybe you’d beat me; but either way, it’d be an embarrassment. Two old cronks bashing away at each other till they both run out of breath or one of them drops dead with a heart attack! Not good! So I’ve got a better suggestion for you.This treasure, now. It took a lot of looting, burning and general rapine to accumulate it all, and I won’t pretend I didn’t enjoy doing it: in fact it was tremendously enjoyable. But, as I told you, that was all over long ago, and nowadays I don’t seem to do anything except lie here and count it. And I can tell you for a fact, hunting down and collecting something is much more fun than spending years just owning it: it’s not the same thing at all. Sometimes I do wonder why I bother to keep it all, and do you know, I really can’t think of an answer? When you look back on life, you realise that you set yourself various goals, and some of them you achieved, only perhaps they weren’t quite as exciting as you expected, and the rest you realise you’ll never achieve now. So what I’m proposing to you is this: instead of fighting for my gold, why don’t you just take as much of it as you can carry, and go home? You can tell people you’ve killed me, for all I care. They’ll probably believe you, and I doubt very much whether anyone will actually come up here to check. You could say I put a dying curse on it; something like that. And who knows, when you’re really old, you might come to believe yourself that you once actually killed a dragon. And if everyone, including you, believes it happened, then it’s just as good as if it really did, isn’t it?

………………………………...................................

Some time later, the dragon awoke from a doze and thought to himself, Really, that all got pretty tedious, didn’t it? I sometimes wonder what the world’s coming to, when I have to explain the most obvious things, practically spell them out word for word, not just to children but even to adults. I think that as I get older, I don’t get more patient and tolerant, but less! But then he thought, No, it’s not fair to blame poor old Tristram; it’s not really his fault he was so ignorant: it’s just that no-one ever bothered to teach him anything.
In any case, he may have been a bit over the hill, but he still tasted quite nice!
　
　
　
　

The Mask of Agamemnon

Pale gold, thin as card, shaped to a face
Heavy-lidded eyes like cowries, and a smile.
Not the faint ironic smile of a skull,
But a grin of power; satiated;
Having laid conscience to rest.
This face, not Helen’s, launched the thousand ships,
Murdered Iphigenia, burned Troy,
To avenge an insult to the family,
To not lose face.

Then, fixed in eternal gold,
Sent out of sight of man to darkness,
Unrotted in the grave; for endless years
Only the gods could see. To them it showed its grin
And the message: “This face was not lost:
“Through heroic genocide, and towns laid waste, this face was saved”.

And now is saved indeed
Since Schliemann dug it from the earth.
Placed now behind bullet-proof glass
Stronger than stone walls and Lion Gates
Under fluorescence far brighter
Than any sun of Hellas
Agamemnon, great king
Of mighty Mycenae
Once more in state
Triumphant over death as over morality
Immortalised in story as in gold
Still grinning. We repeat: this face was saved
Though nothing else was.
Troy was lost, and soon after
Mycenae also was lost, but this face was not lost.
What more could any king desire?

Crime and Punishment

On the first occasion, he saw in the distance a marvellous city. A bright sun caused its towers and pinnacles to shine like gold, and the glitter from the numberless windows was like a scattering of diamonds. Banners of all colours fluttered in the breeze, which bore to him the scent of new-mown hay. He was not close enough to glimpse the people of the city, but he felt sure they were a noble race, for who could fail to be noble amongst such beauty? He greatly desired to enter the city and walk its streets, but even as he approached the walls the vision was snatched from him and he awoke. The little bottle of opium stood beside his bed.

He never found his city again, though he saw many strange and wonderful things, most of which escaped his memory directly he awoke. But as time progressed, and his doses of the drug increased, his visions held darkness amidst the beauty. He saw a gorgeous pavilion, set in gardens above a river, but knew it was doomed to imminent destruction. He saw himself on a mountain peak, which appeared to be in the Lake District, and listened to the music of the bells ringing in the valleys below, but the songs the bells sang were songs of death. He saw a young bride entering the castle of her elderly husband, and she was very lovely, but when she turned towards him he saw her eyes were the yellow unblinking eyes of a serpent. All these things he was able to record in his poems, which helped to relieve his pain. Each time his apprehension increased, but he could not abandon his search now.

After a while, waking and dreaming seemed to merge, and he was left unsure which was which. Sometimes when he walked through the streets of London at night, plagued by the insomnia resulting from the opium, he thought he had found his wondrous city at last, only it was no longer marvellous, but sinister and haunted. Evil lurked around every corner, watching him from a distance, just out of his sight, and the people he met (but could not speak to, nor did they speak to him) were not noble heroes and ravishing beauties, but ghosts, who wore the masks of death. He realised he was being punished for his temerity. His awareness of guilt deepened, until he came to feel he had committed a crime so monstrous, so horrible, that even he could not be told what it was. I have blasphemed against the gods by my search, he thought: no, it is far worse than that: my crime somehow threatens the very basis of the universe; and my punishment will be like none that has ever existed before.

He only knew of one way which might allow him to escape from these horrors: he must set them out in a poem, which would tell of a man who is guilty of a terrible crime and justly suffers an equally terrible punishment, but is eventually redeemed by his suffering
and pardoned. Such an ending would provide him with at least some hope of release. But what precise crime would the man in his poem have committed, since he could not
explain it himself? He did not know. So he consulted his closest friend; also a poet, but more down-to-earth in his ideas. And William pondered for a while, and then said, “I was reading the other day about a sailor who was marooned on a desert island by his shipmates, who were disgusted by his wickedness. It appears that sailors regard shooting an albatross as a very wicked act, and also an extremely unlucky one”.

“Thank you”, said Samuel, “I shall take up that idea. My poem will be about a sailor who is punished for shooting an albatross. I shall call him, The Ancient Mariner."

The Days

The first day was golden with the radiance of pure light, as the Sun rose. Creation began. But behind the radiance was the anti-light, the false creation, which is the greatest sin.

The second day was glittering silver beneath the Moon. It was a day of mysteries, of hidden things, and of the waters. And the sin of the second day was magic, and forbidden knowledge.

The third day was blood red, and it was the day of Mars. A day of struggle, a day of iron. The sin of the third day was violence, and blind rage.

The fourth day was black as the infinite void, but from the blackness rose swift Mercury, the Quicksilver, who made it a day of buying and selling, of coming and going, and of messages. The sin of the fourth day was greed.

On the fifth day the firmament was painted bright blue, and its lord was Jupiter. So great was he that some confused him with his Maker. And the sin of the fifth day was pride.

The sixth day was the shining green of verdigris. Here lay the naked form of Venus, who commanded it to be a day for lovemaking. And so the sin of the sixth day was lust.

The seventh day was rich imperial purple, robing ancient Saturn as he yawned on his leaden throne of unendurable weight. On this day all creatures rest from their labours. So the sin of the seventh day was idleness.

So the first week ends.

In the Gardens

I left the crowds who were milling around near the entrance, playing football, picnicking on the lawns or lying by the flowerbeds in the warm spring sunshine, and wandered off into the glades. After a while a came across a long avenue of chestnuts in bloom, all cream and white, and at the end stood the Crimson Pagoda. I walked towards it and realised it was very tall. But it was not what I had come to see.
There were fewer people in this part of the gardens, and they were scattered and solitary. A few were walking, but most were sitting alone and silent on benches under the trees. They were generally middle-aged or elderly. I approached one grey-haired man, and when he showed no sign of acknowledging my presence, coughed discreetly to attract his attention.
“Excuse me”, I ventured apologetically, “Can you tell me the way to the Queen’s House, please?”
He glanced up. His face bore an expression of annoyance. “Over there through the trees and carry straight on”, he said, making a gesture with his left hand and then closing his eyes to indicate that the interview was over. Somewhat daunted by this abrupt reception, I walked quickly away.
There was a path that seemed to run in the right direction, but after a while it began to snake back on itself and there were several junctions. Nobody had put up signposts in this part of the gardens, and after a while I lost confidence in where I was heading and tried to cut across country. The long and unmown grass was still wet from morning dew, and bluebells carpeted the shady places. Huge clumps of rhododendron and holly loomed up to block my intended route. After I had wandered for some time a caught sight of the crimson pagoda up ahead, and realised I must have walked in a circle.
I felt hot and tired as well as irritated by my mistake, but had no intention of being defeated in my plan so easily. A glance at my watch told me that it was only ten past three, and I did not need to leave the gardens for a while yet. I tried asking the way again, this time from a resolute-looking old lady who was walking with the aid of a stick. Her reply was brusque and not very helpful, and once again I set off. This time my travels took me into a thicket of willows, where I soon became disorientated, and next I found my way barred by dense hawthorn bushes all strewn with early may-blossom. There was no sign of the Queen’s House. I wished I had taken the trouble to buy a map of the gardens before setting out, and for that matter a tin of drink from the café would also have been sensible. I was still pondering on this when the familiar outline of the Crimson Pagoda came into view again.
I lost track of how many times I must have wandered in these meaningless circles. Eventually I even began to doubt whether I was capable of finding my way back to the entrance. My feet were burning, I was very thirsty and above all I needed a rest. I found a secluded wooden bench under a gigantic beech tree. The young leaves cast dappled shadows and the air was very still. I sat down, stretched out my legs, turned my face to the sky and closed my eyes. The Queen’s House would have to wait ……

I snapped suddenly awake at looked at my watch. It still said ten past three and had clearly stopped, but this did not worry me unduly. Even if I was completely lost, the park-keeper would surely come round at closing time to shepherd everyone out. For the moment, I could stay where I was. The day was still bright, and when I was properly rested I would have time to resume my search. It was very pleasant here under the trees, letting the scents of spring waft over me. What was so special about finding the Queen’s House anyway? No doubt it would be worth seeing, but it would be empty: everyone knew it was many years since the Queen had actually lived there.
The sun hung motionless in the sky, and the warm afternoon lasted for ever …….

An unwelcome voice made itself heard. I looked up in annoyance at this unnecessary intrusion into my private reverie. It was a young fellow asking his way to the Queen’s House. His face, his voice, his whole manner irritated me.
Over there through the trees”, I said, waving my arm at random. You can’t miss it”. I was glad to be rid of him.

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings

(An answer to the famous poem by Shelley. To be recited in a silly voice)

Last summer I saw Ozymandias
It was on the left bank of the Nile
Across from Luxor. His visage
Was even more shattered than when Shelley’s friend saw it
But the archaeologists had stuck it back on
His patched-up shoulders.
I didn’t see any inscription
But maybe it had been removed to
The Cairo museum.
The bit about there being nothing around but sand
Is however completely wrong, since these days
The whole area is thick with hucksters selling
The most appalling junk to the parties of tourists
So when you thing of it, the natives really ought to be grateful to Ozymandias
Because if he hadn’t taken the trouble to put up the statue
The region would be even poorer than it is
And it set me wondering how Adolf Hitler
Might be perceived a few thousand years from now
And all the other tourists seemed to be having
Equally solemn thoughts as they gazed upon
What is styled the “colossal wreck”
And I even saw genuine despair one some faces
Though maybe they were only wondering how long
They would have to last out until
They found the
Next lavatory.