Langley - Face of It

Its the sequence in the bar on an outer planet. You see piecemeal through the ruddy strobes and smoke. You must be by the door, and going through the motions, brushing off the rain. Their backs are to you. Hunchbacks. Some of them wear metal.

Fanged pauldrons, bizarre combs frizz up against the strip light further in. Barbarians. Or a culture in elaborate decline. Flagrant. Capricious. You ought to recognise which tribe.

Those red plush tippets. An occasional glimmer of a souveraigne collar, if youre right. Some Gothic warriors. Braggarde and dangerous. They have not yet looked round. One turns to speak.

And now you see his beak and thin, uncurling tongue. The customers are monsters. The customers are monsters. From deeper down somewhere, some instruments like soft trombones start blowing a blue hockett. The customers are monsters. They have not seen you yet, but, when they do, theyll love you limb from limb.

Meanwhile they face the wonderful barmaid, who is all their mothers still. She gains her glory nobly tugging every polished handle in the middle of her rosy, pumping heart. They need their nips of sack and sugar poured by this real lady, level to the lips of their own greedy brimmers. Now shell look up and see that you have come, in your perversity, her erstwhile son, through the tempest, on the last night when it could be done, to the back door, for, once more, a sop, a sip. Only your haggard stare can win her. No secret wink gets you this drink.

Nor the guts to shove you to the front, as you hold out your fathers empty bag. This bit. Again. The hockett stops. The strobes lock rigid at the top of nightmare. Then a dragon starts to swivel in his chair.

The barmaids million hands close on this one pump handle and become a simple pair.

Her summers boy. A bead she polished first to put deliberately last. Her lonely coal. Kick start. Heart prick. Fire crumb.

Come close in focus. Here you are. The cavern fits the wren. Lenticular. This is her son. Her pearl in the pout.

The merry meal in her floury mouth. And so and so. Amen. But ahoy you young lout! Not so far! Not so fast! You can never tell when, with that hole in you. Nothing is less than particular.

Cool as a lemonade. A gull rides with its two red feet, dib dab, beneath, doing appropriate kicks. So easily can the low sun rearrange some pegs, making another countenance with its legs. It switches hips, turns on a toe. Marram shoves its stems through silica and an unidentified spider starts to chew his gloves. Now here he is, cream spots on cinnamon.

His camouflage first becomes his normal wardrobe, then Voil! Hes ablaze with all his badges! Handsome patches double on his abdomen. You see the sense of this, compared with the mad quarrels in the mix of flints. Bunch or run, whatever he does is excellently done. Gems will be known and numbered in the movement of the secretarys watch. You rip so you can match. A nib makes flourishes with an emphatic scratch.

Where nothing bothered any more, draught boils a cobweb. Forgotten by the world, odd glossy bits blow round, hang out, shake up. As keen as mustard every seed spits on his neaf. There seems to be no limit to the amount of life it would be good to have, just fingering the thickness of a leaf. So what if there are really no grand narratives? Electric peaseblossom flutters in the surf on autumn nights. Your rapier can still spear the eel.

It can pick off this particular caterpillar with a flick. Your brain finds much to amuse it in a bush. Youre the best friend of a naturalist who hugged himself, expecting it to be a bear. Stand back. Give it a chance to growl, if it is there. The gull glows.

Dusk adjusts its grey to that. Pit pat. There must be huge commotion when you touch shocks of grass. Eight eyes. Brightest the golden pair. A clink of chitin as eight knees slightly clench.

This heartbeat underneath this cardiac mark, like a soft pulsation in a trench. It creaks in the thicket. Come quick! The room is full of them, as big as birds! The great mounsieurs in white neckties and with their wings as floppy as a melancholics hat. They hood and wink until they eventually clip the little ticket which is shivering in the muscle of your cheek. Dont be dismayed. Its nine oclock.

Lay all the stuff you have collected on the mat. Count the score. Do the job slowly. Do it well. Colour them in. Maroon. Brown. Brown.

Ivory black. Once youve got started, most of the males will stop their flap to settle down together round the female on the bell. O Peter Quince, its not knavery at all! Cool as a lemonade. The convenient place. Just as you said before.

Now be quiet while I think. And groan. And blink. I am anxious about the wineglass. Its an expert at staying awake. How can it ever close its eyes? Its too good a defence against an easy sleep under the trees.

The wineglass stands fast in a gale of sunlight, where there is one undamaged thistle seed caught on its rim, moving its long filaments through blue to orange, slowly exploring the glorious furniture. Old Harry has opened that bundle again. Oh well. Tuck up your golden sleeves. Fetch out the white gloves. Well go right through the thistle seeds till we find Jenny.

The finchs mother told him about teasels. He consults them daily with fierce resignation. His findings, however, fluff out and cream off, catching the drift. Mum was the word, but she did give a nod. So they sidled up close, put a foot on its neck and kiss, kiss; kiss, kiss. Sometimes they stopped pecking to watch what they could not follow.