I wrote separately the little lyric, "Fine is the bloom..." and thought it might work interleaved between the stanzas of "On the Shelf." The two tankas are self-explanatory.
A much earlier poem about a more commonplace parting of ways, written circa 1973-6, is "Parting Ways," posted on 23 July 2013 and linked here.
----------------
In Remembrance Maria Lexton, d. 2004
“I’m on the shelf,” she said:
How so? A “nature’s beauty,” bold and sleek,
With looks and shape to turn men’s gaze unforced:
Welsh-lilted, forty, with a canny head,
Her world the London arts bazaar
Of high-strung narcissists, half-noused, half-freak –
Writers and ad-men, journos, paunched and sauced
By well-wined lunches at the Gay Hussar –
Surely she was at her peak?
Fine is the bloom and sweet the scent,
But still the flower falls,
Able to hold her drink,
Her cigarettes to hand, that fatal flaw,
But shunned by wives distrustful of their men,
(For one had delved, his name masked by a blink,
Who now paid lushly for his child’s
Ménage); ill-lucked, drawn fatefully to raw
Abusive couplings, louche, her woman’s yen
To settle was upturned by door-slammed wilds,
Love left trashed like trampled straw.
For hidden in its flare and curl
There’s a worm which crawls:
And so I played my part.
A paddler in that 1980s pool
Of “Time Out” parties, Chelsea Arts Club ball
And Muriel’s (that hell!); tricked-up, chic-smart,
I’d sire her through an evening’s routs
Then later in her flat we’d play by rule
Of drinks and talk before a taxi call
To take me to my digs: I had no doubts
Wish and blood should keep their cool.
Who would not ache to brush that bloom
Against his longing cheek?
For both knew that she lived
In torsions like to wreck the Prufrock-type:
Cheek kisses, hugs, were limits; twilight lands
Lay hid beyond where chancers, brags, were sieved
And wounds and heart-grief shrank the soul.
At last, revulsed by London’s bonhomme hype,
I upsticked west to Cornwall’s winds and sands:
Years passed, then news came like an evil dole,
Death had seized her with a finalled swipe.
Though soon, so soon, its petalled flesh
Is mottled with a streak:
It seemed absurdity
Her warm if hazard beauty should be gone:
But twenty years have hightailed: we now left
Quail in the chill of death’s immensity:
In evening thoughts I sometimes grasp
Some glimpse of purpose in the path we’re on;
Will it one day, like a Madonna in a cleft,
Reveal that smile, that lilt, her friendly clasp,
Crowned with hay-scent hair which shone?
Now mulched in earth that flower lies,
The wind blowing round,
And what was tough though fragrant-soft
Sleeps without sound.
-------------
Tanka for Maria
Known for her shoe hoard
She’d helplessly groan, “I need
New shoes.” “No mother,”
Came her daughter’s tart rebuke,
“You don’t need, you want new shoes!”
Double Tanka for Maria
Came a night she wore
A tight open-sided dress
Which glimpsed her breast curves,
Her flanks honey-coloured, firm.
Entering the Groucho’s bar,
Men’s eyes homed like bees
To nectar (and women’s too
More circumspectly).
I was by her side all night:
My, my, those envious looks!
====================
Everything © June 2023
----------------
In Remembrance Maria Lexton, d. 2004
“I’m on the shelf,” she said:
How so? A “nature’s beauty,” bold and sleek,
With looks and shape to turn men’s gaze unforced:
Welsh-lilted, forty, with a canny head,
Her world the London arts bazaar
Of high-strung narcissists, half-noused, half-freak –
Writers and ad-men, journos, paunched and sauced
By well-wined lunches at the Gay Hussar –
Surely she was at her peak?
Fine is the bloom and sweet the scent,
But still the flower falls,
Able to hold her drink,
Her cigarettes to hand, that fatal flaw,
But shunned by wives distrustful of their men,
(For one had delved, his name masked by a blink,
Who now paid lushly for his child’s
Ménage); ill-lucked, drawn fatefully to raw
Abusive couplings, louche, her woman’s yen
To settle was upturned by door-slammed wilds,
Love left trashed like trampled straw.
For hidden in its flare and curl
There’s a worm which crawls:
And so I played my part.
A paddler in that 1980s pool
Of “Time Out” parties, Chelsea Arts Club ball
And Muriel’s (that hell!); tricked-up, chic-smart,
I’d sire her through an evening’s routs
Then later in her flat we’d play by rule
Of drinks and talk before a taxi call
To take me to my digs: I had no doubts
Wish and blood should keep their cool.
Who would not ache to brush that bloom
Against his longing cheek?
For both knew that she lived
In torsions like to wreck the Prufrock-type:
Cheek kisses, hugs, were limits; twilight lands
Lay hid beyond where chancers, brags, were sieved
And wounds and heart-grief shrank the soul.
At last, revulsed by London’s bonhomme hype,
I upsticked west to Cornwall’s winds and sands:
Years passed, then news came like an evil dole,
Death had seized her with a finalled swipe.
Though soon, so soon, its petalled flesh
Is mottled with a streak:
It seemed absurdity
Her warm if hazard beauty should be gone:
But twenty years have hightailed: we now left
Quail in the chill of death’s immensity:
In evening thoughts I sometimes grasp
Some glimpse of purpose in the path we’re on;
Will it one day, like a Madonna in a cleft,
Reveal that smile, that lilt, her friendly clasp,
Crowned with hay-scent hair which shone?
Now mulched in earth that flower lies,
The wind blowing round,
And what was tough though fragrant-soft
Sleeps without sound.
-------------
Tanka for Maria
Known for her shoe hoard
She’d helplessly groan, “I need
New shoes.” “No mother,”
Came her daughter’s tart rebuke,
“You don’t need, you want new shoes!”
Double Tanka for Maria
Came a night she wore
A tight open-sided dress
Which glimpsed her breast curves,
Her flanks honey-coloured, firm.
Entering the Groucho’s bar,
Men’s eyes homed like bees
To nectar (and women’s too
More circumspectly).
I was by her side all night:
My, my, those envious looks!
====================
Everything © June 2023
