Peru

I'm leaning on the Levers Rich
its big, about the size of a washing machine
"its worth about 200 quid" i tell you
you obviously want to know being an antique dealer
"blimey you've got loads of records ere" you bluster
in your best east end barrow boy
"this pile here is Mozart" i inform
"ee wrote some lovely tunes
nice and simple everybody loves Mozart" you say
and yes
i have seen the film
as a throw away i introduce Tchaikovsky
"that woman was in it, that politician .. i don't like her"
as i dont have a TV im at a bit of a loss
but then the memory Brant describes at eidetic kicks in
"you mean Glenda Jackson .. did Ken Russell make a film about Tchaikovsky ??" i venture
its a long way at the back of that recess we used to call memory
"yea its was a film .. dunno who made it but that doctor Kildare bloke..um
Richard Chamberlain
ee was in it .. and she was the bird oo fancied im ..
till she found out ee was shaggin er brother"
"Naz'da Von Meck"
i've got about three rooms stuffed to the ceiling with classical records
and her name is remembered forever, as forever as Tchaikovsky might be, on a few of them
"dunno .. but ee drank poisoned water in the end .. killed izself yu know .."
filmpothesis
in truth he didn't boil the water
maybe knew there was Cholera around
maybe playing Russian roulette or just forgetful
people died quite often, quite young in those days
but you you Gene
you'll live forever, as long as people love Tchaikovsky
because you Mista Dell
are about to come up with a gem
worthy of his great music
"iz most famous tune was that Swan Lake"
im all eager ears now in fact they're itchy im so excited
so i nod and um a bit
"famous all over the world .. everybody everywhere knows it all over Europe
even in opera houses in Russia and China and that, they could sing it
even in Peru, right in the middle of the jungle"
im convulsed with laughter..
"what ??" you say looking quizzically at me
and glancing left as if for corroboration at someone else ...
well i have visions of men in green palm skirts
with their embroidered bands and red macaw feathers
pert behind their bark cloth headbands
dancing
dancing, two old tribesmen
doing the famous pas de deux
there, green in the depths of the jungle
hairless bronze legs twiddling
while half hid up Bora trees
the younger tribesman warble the leitmotif
Song Of the Swans
beaten to the huge hollowed drums, that thumping thief of tunes
hanging as he does by two vine ropes from the very tipmost bract of verdant jungle canopy
suddenly
they cast their arms toward the apex in the trees one calls the sky
and screech ..yaaaeeeiiaaagh
the drums stop
its heartbeat smothered by the herbage
and then
they ..
Eat the Swan
its liver first to the great Bora
its breast, sectioned, dripping, moist the delicacy of elders
and legs and tendon gangling among the juniors
and with a cry a bowl is summoned forth
and from seeds as red as tiny bleeding kidneys
that startling red, as fresh as new born blood it is
its Swan feathers dipped into the famous anchote dye
and you Gene
your black white bark cloth skirt
barely fit around your tubby girth
bow forward and recieve the headdress of the Swan
a crown from the Gods of Sun and Music bestowed upon your grey empirical head
which amplifies its beauty
much as laurels amplified the gore that Rome called glory
i watch in awe
honoured to be present at this tribute

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Peru

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