And - Pt I

…and when you were a young girl

with dreams in the night skies and

passionate strangers were following your sighs,

you just wished for a vivid red

double-decker bus on the Causo, and a

teddy bear in velvet but

Six feet alive…

(and a silk skirt uplifted

   while annointing your thighs).

 

…and your friends were giggle girls

arrayed in gym tunics with

crayons for scribble words on lavatory walls,

with gauche legs for the teachers,

flash-flashing down the corridors

and gash-red lips waiting for the

mother of pearl…

(and a love pit never ending

   at the end of the world).

 

…and your sighs were bubble sighs

for the sharp-shooting larrikins

and your thighs were trouble thighs

that worried sad men,

and your cries were wild cries

from the red eyes of the sunset

when the world seemed so empty

in the dim days of then…

(when your love took to another girl

and never came again).

 

…and you gaze past the pram hood

at the young girls laugh-laughing and

run, skip and jumping to pull at their hair,

and there’s sadness in the memory

as your feet ache in the market

and you wish now for a daisy

to plait in your hair…

(and you feel the life within you

   in an empty despair).

 

David Lewis Paget