Ennui

Of course this is definite proof that Sir William Gull was Jack the Ripper. The 1000th issue of Private Eye had a cartoon of various people who have figured in the life of that august organ, one of whom was Prince Philip. He had a seagull on his shoulder just like the picture of Queen Victoria in the above linked picture by Walter Sickert. I should have written in with the immortal line "are they by any chance related?". Nothing on the web about it though. Should I write? I once read that one of the signs of growing up is when one stops buying Private Eye. I don't actually buy it any more but I will read it. Maybe they meant Viz magazine.

Time for some more Poetry

Autumn Blind and Organ Drunk

There was darkness and death
in the marches,
hidden in the drifts and earths,
waiting to be dug out
and dragged before the fire
to answer that ringing smile;
to be hefted, yelping
on the smoky floor,
new-born, blind and drunk,
retracting from the smoke of men
but hidden safe from them.

"I hate you" she said
and all was swept before her
into the snowy ditches,
home of the damp rats.
I was of the bomber's kind,
consumed and king
of the broken phrase.
I dreamed of rooves falling
softly into the white,
of waking to a cold smog
of dry powder
and a bomber's moon.

We fought in the ice-lock,
starved with out mouths frozen closed,
turning white under the barrage
and waving bright things.

What squares there were.
In those gold borders I lived
apart from the happy,
academic families,
with their distant stasis
of ancient language,
tangible musics
in portraiture, in sleep walk.
I crossed Ice bridges
through my mind
to die at the feet
of that tall musician.

There was snow between us
and scattered sweets,
sugar as juvenile gifts,
gifts to the thin,
malnourished government ideal,
never to be consumed.

In the twang of the cold strings,
there was desire;
In the beat of chaos,
there was the break,
the key to error,
a draw to me,
the ghost of exhibitionism.

Crimes of the patterned scarlet
leave me breathless,
low at the image leaking
through some hands to mine,
returning in the whirling jangle,
over green and under blue,
a blue which spins and thinks,
a concious shade,
alone in the city desert,
the rose of deserts
and in the midst of millions.