Raymond Durgnat
Street Music
When the blind beggar taps
With his counterfeit coins
On your moony window
And his egg-pure orbs
Record your loveliness as nothing
— Notice the flute, slung over stooping shoulders,
Padded with yesterdays’ papers, scares,
Bound over Hamlets, Juliets on probation,
And King Lears snug in padded cells,
Please do not imagine
That he only conceives
You as Miranda
On the blotched and dilapidated island
When the king rides by
With his prancing plume
And diamond-cut-diamond glances,
And thighs as brisk as kangaroos,
And boots as black as shiny nights,
And who defies the laws of his own gravity,
— Do not fear the extraordinary,
Do not shrink from the medallions,
The sashes and braids, the stars and diplomas
He will affix to your cloudcapped mountains,
Nor the white charger,
Smelling of warm straw,
Nuzzling your fingers for sugar
For Dr Beggar and Mr King
Are both your suitors
And when you abolish time and hope
And Debretts and desires and distinctions of colours
And Who’s Who and history and all person singulars
Then the king breasts your darkness
And the soft flute lisps
And the moon looms milkily
And trickles in through the shrivelling leads
And the dead world boils over
And the beggar’s pores daily
Drink in your beauty as the soil melts snow
And innocence
And the charger leaps the hoop of moon
And in the saddle the lucky beggar
Frightens you into your wits and holds you tight
And your joy streams like the comet that you are
Page(s) 60-61
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