William Pillin
I confront the star-spell of the esplanade!
I walk as jaunty as a sailor
among fortune-tellers, dancers, gymnasts,
among gamblers, among all sorts of gypsies.
Necromantic presences mingle among us:
this cute whore is Phryne, sister of moonlights,
this old Jew under a streetlight is Merlin;
Shaharazad serves coffee and pancakes
and Sinbad lures the unwary with trinkets.
I have an illusion of freedom
and it may well be a prelude to trouble.
Who cares? This is a magical evening!
All things assume a novel succulence; clusters
of black grapes, sausages, pastries.
I am avid, like a cat in the jungle
seduced by a scent of musk or civet.
In blue-bright air flares are falling
to dissolve on restaurants, wineshops,
dance-halls and dimly lit interiors
from one of which (an obscure shrine of Pan?)
we hear a bacchic wail of clarinets.
Here is a café where Lesbians gather
and here is a place where, they tell me,
anything can happen. The unpredictable
lures like an unwritten poem. All else failing
one could shoot down a bomber or witness
a piquant disrobing in a penny arcade.
I turn sadly back to my curfewed suburb
of discreet doorways and subdued lamplights.
What is lacking here, what tang, what tonic?
Nocturnal laughters and musical whispers
have been exiled to the sea-edge
by the police and jeering merchants.
Held by a dangerous moonlight
between cold stones and colder water
life's subtle djinns clamor for release.
-from Pavane For A Fading Memory, 1963
Reprinted in To The End Of Time, Poems New And Selected (1939-1979), Papa Bach Editions: Los Angeles, 1980.