A moon climbs above the University College,
a new moon in a modern age,
an old moon palsied, pale and sage,
the hidden lady loved by lost philosophers
who rest their limbs at noon.
This was the toe-nail of Guiton
cut by some lascivious lover
at an hour of bitter dawn.
Toenail of old Confucius clipped with scissors
by some fat, obsequious slave,
pawned for pansy blossom gifts, donations
swapped for decorations
round the hips of dancing girls.
Moon sliver
subtly slither
delicacy of moulded form
hewn stone and sand papered wood
belly smooth.
The moon wafts her delicacies abroad,
scent of Nightingale blood on thorns,
shades of tree-flit fawns
soft mothers fur doe white
doves cooing on sunburnt afternoons.
Images of sea froth and epileptic foam
Purple mouthed pubescent with a half broken voice;
images of snake-sleek propagandists selling "Daily Worker"
to hollow eyed protagonists
of steel machines;
images of lancet lights
and cloister columns' arms entwined,
the arch-eyed listener keen to fathom
dark recesses of a paltry mind;
images of gravelled courts
patterned shadows on moon-struck towers,
cake walk idylls of small boys.
Why forsake your virility
You hollow eyed!
Whence came this time of sterility
- Hollow eyed men?
We listen to a lecturer
telling us how to fertilise a woman.
On the wireless J.Z. Young
talks of decerebrate cat
philosophy of neo-fate
shades of modern Rubaiyat.
The moon? They call her exoteric
lady, madam, mother of the skies
but we are the progeny of nature's baby
time and all eternities.
We have before us three score years and ten
before the soil is turned again.
The Moon ? Oh aching heart,
I, an old man in my youth,
find it there to say
she has no influence.
There is no guidance council in the skies
We can find it only in each other.
Oh animus and anima
let us to the cinema.
1952