BRAVE NEW WORLD

5 poems

#4

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MARMALADE TAXIS

The Lost Poem

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So Jim says he’s found a real cool line

Jim says those kinda things all of the time

So Jim-boy asks … then goes off in ‘my’ jalopy

No doubt in search of  some Tai Yuwan Poppy

I would never touch the immaculate ‘H’

Jim says he wouldn’t touch that shit either

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Down the stairs in my mothers small kitchen

Today I met two people I didn’t even know

Out on the verandah,

Just a concrete path in a suburban jungle

I have time to watch the spider-mites play

Tiny red arachnida making crazy patterns on the path

While the sun burns hot on the nape of my neck

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Jimmy, Jimmy O sweet Jimmy, you play it so cool

Your face is distorted on her bedroom wall

“Organic Wonderland” from a diamond needle

a little black tab,

the pupil in your eye,

an honest moment

in a black-star sky

Thats a great title 

for a night-time vigil

with Jimmy H, ‘H’ and I

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I have this experience

I am rising up to the ceiling like a helium balloon

If you open up the window I might just drift away

Another time Tetris shapes

are dancing in my head, dancing round the organ

to the music coloured red, its a ‘Hammond’ organ

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Helen is a nurse, she pierced my ear today

with a cauterised safety pin

she took from out her dress

I’m not sure where she’s been sleeping

its not been here with me

she’s sweet as must and angel dust

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Our dog escaped the other day

she’d been living with my aunt

while my mother is away

The fuzz’ came round to our front door

with Umma Gumma playing

that’s not against the law

I freaked out, travelling on acid

stripped off all my clothes

just to show that I was placid?

So we flushed our ‘stash’

down the pan

a bag of Jamaican grass

and some excellent Moroccan

Mustn’t let them find me here

with drugs is what I prayed

the fuzz-man went,

my fears were then allayed

Have to talk with Jim-boy now

find out what he’s got

now ‘H’ went and swallowed

the whole fuckin’ lot

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Poor Rod MacDonnel hasn’t slept now for days

keeps dropping speed, his life’s a purple haze

Worried about his boots, worried about his hair

he’s worried about Dave Bowie and if he’s really ‘there’

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Swiss Muesli now for breakfast

crusty bread and apples

It’s now time for us to choose

what we put inside our body

We can think for ourselves

ask questions of authority

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clausula

At the root of the stem in those living years

We were tempted to think we might have found some answers

By various people, like Huxley, Leary, Ginsberg and Kerouac

Living at the time did sometimes seem a lot easier

When you woke in the morning to greet the brand new day

The trees were all still breathing

and sometimes you just slept in your strides

They were white … everything was white … like white noise …

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writtenbyedenbray8today

Ref. 02052020

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~ 50 year anniversary ~

#Authors Note ~ This poem is the fourth that I have modelled closely on a series of five that I wrote around 1970. Marmalade Taxis could as easily be entitled The Lost Poem as it represents the only one I honestly cannot clearly recall.

Originally it would have been one of five diverse poems that were accepted for a published Anthology entitled something like – ‘This Britain’ which went on sale to the general public at that time. It was an Anthology of collected poetry that was intended to reflect the inner soul of the society of that day. It was multi-cultural and reflected work from the broadest possible section of 1970’s Britain – all ages, sexes, ethnicity, political or religious standpoints but the poetry although diverse and experimental included only works of a recognised literary standard and would become an important historic and cultural record of that era. I would love to obtain another copy.

The 4th Poem was the psychedelic piece of the five that I wrote which included four other Poems that together challenged the society of the time; social values, politics, law & order, police brutality and law enforcement, drug use and abuse, life experience including faith, religion and prejudice among other powerful issues.

Having no significant recall of this ‘lost poem’, I have taken the opportunity to write a semi-autobiographical pastiche that I hope reflects the time and the real ‘feel’ of  young people of that day, rather than the more jingoistic, clichéd, sixties rhetoric we are often presented with and that was in part encouraged by the song-writers and commentators of the time.

In reality, young men and women from all class groups suddenly found themselves experimenting with a freedom of lifestyle that most were ill-equipped to handle, including an indiscriminate use of hallucinogenic and sometimes unsafe mind-altering drugs like lysergic acid, along with mood-changing and unpredictable pharmaceuticals such as barbiturates, amphetamines and benzedrine and of course in some cases seriously addictive drugs such as cocaine and heroin. 

The Poems themselves were regrettably mislaid around 1973/74 and I have since made repeated attempts to rewrite them – if not word for word – then with the aim of capturing the same forthright views, the optimism, verve, colour and intensity that I remember they were so brim full of. I was 19/20 years old!

These re-written and now completed pieces I hope apply themselves to society today making them as pertinent, relevant and I hope profound as I believe the original collection were when I wrote them 50 years ago

I now call these Poems my personal “Brave New World” Collection and I hope to publish the remaining re-write on this Blog-site very shortly under that same heading. I offer them to you dear reader with my best, heartfelt wishes! –   

                          edenbraytoday

Ref. 02062020

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Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

Guest Poem