One Summer RICHARD JURGENS
Young mare, Pride of the Caucasian breed, I love your wild spirit But why are you rushing? Pushkin
One Summer © 2010 by Richard Jurgens Print edition published in 2010 by Blackbird Poetry Amsterdam, the Netherlands. ISBN: 978-90-815 180-1-7. Kindle edition published 2012 by BARNCOTT PRESS Cover illustration: Painting © Norman Macdonald Blackbird symbol © Richard Jurgens All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
1. she likes to turn up to the party late
4
2. incredible how hard it is
5
3. it’s like it’s war out there or something
6
4. for god’s sake who sends valentines
6
5. when everyone is wearing colored coats
7
6. imagining smooth china in the afternoon
7
7. nothing like the hour
8
8. when people ask her how it happened
9
9. she sends a photo to me
10
10. they stood outside the tiny airport
10
11. when we’re together in the small hours
11
12. she wants to know if strawberries and oak trees ...
13
13. we’d said goodbye I thought
13
14. i understand the role I play in her new life
14
15. we thought we’d get some movies in
14
16. as scornful as Olympia now
16
17. she wanted to be wined and dined she said
17
18. she turned up late last night
17
19. this is a perfect summer
18
20. weaving down that echoing street
19
21. you phone me Sunday morning
19
22. they keep me up all night sometimes
22
23. it’s time to go away she says
23
24. sometimes you’ll smile privately
23
25. and it was good to feel part of things again
24
26. i hope you’ll read my little book one day
25
About the Author
8
Acknowledgements
8
1. she likes to turn up to the party late
she likes to turn up to the party late her Jazz Age mouth curved in a little smile as if remembering the pleasures of her bed last night or maybe that slow morning and sometimes she will have her steady man in tow and sometimes not depending she likes to go about alone these days I hear and she will always make her entrance just as the main act’s coming on when things are getting kicking down in the sweaty stalls and she’ll be welcomed by circling arms and proffered cheeks and before you know it drawn into an impenetrable crowd well friend I think that we agree I see you stand and stare as the spirit of the music takes her and she begins to laugh and shine and show her pleasure she is a thoughtful friend a great companion in the small hours and probably she’s good in bed but she is ENGLISH see and the English are great actors so if your moment ever comes make sure you time your entrance well cool rools OK.
2. incredible how hard it is
incredible how hard it is to get her full attention if I propose a quiet movie she says she’s sure that friends will want to see it too if I mention a new restaurant that’s recently been well reviewed she’ll say she’s keen to try it then suddenly she’ll remember she’s going home to London or ring me in the afternoon with news of a new deadline or urgent travel story well music is the magic key to many a locked heart I think so next I bet my scalp on rock ’n’ roll but here I put my foot in it and make a novice’s mistake she’s written books on this for god’s sake she corresponds with Morrissey but still I try to drop a name or two so I am not surprised when later in the whisky bar she texts that she is running late the crew will all be there she’ll c us @ the show :-)
3. it’s like it’s war out there or something
it’s like it’s war out there or something he stirred his double macchiato they’re watching everyone they’re everywhere there’s uniforms on every corner there’d been an ugly murder in the city in certain neighbourhoods the mood was tense I’d wanted somewhere quieter to meet my friend preferred to move about as usual among the restaurants and grunge cafés on tour among the pretty folk who smile on the sunny terraces with Raybans in their hair and watch the working world go by yeah he flung his ponytail back and downed his coffee like a shot of bourbon strange times to be in town he’d been caught at a roadblock it was a crazy Friday night and he was coming off the ferry from the North and couldn’t show ID they’d checked him out his bicycle his briefcase apparently both stolen he swore that he’d not known before and there was probably a thread to his indignant story but friends kept coming up to say hey dude and high-five him and draw him into coded conversation about the places they all knew and it took a few more macchiatti to get the point of this whole thing it seemed our quick Californian had spent a long weekend in solitary while details of his past were scrutinised and he had almost been deported but then an angel had appeared to save him I bet you can’t guess who he said no I said I can’t guess who long story short his angel was the girl
who I’ve been trying to get close to the girl who disappears for weeks on end who sometimes answers messages she’d fetched him from the po-lice station she’d even smashed her piggybank to pay his bail if we can’t ride the ferries when we want and cops can pull folks off the sidewalk who’re going about their business any time they want he added then fascism’s not far away and normally I’d agree of course but I was thinking of his great discovery he’d found the way all right to get this girl’s attention he’d gone to fucking gaol.
About the Author
Richard Jurgens was born in Johannesburg in 1960. His memoir of his years with the ANC in the frontline states of southern Africa was published in 2000. He was the founding editor of Amsterdam Weekly. A writer, editor and translator, he lives in Amsterdam.
Acknowledgements
Title page epigraph: lines 1-- 4, Puskhin, ‘Young mare…’ in The Bronze Horseman and Other Poems, translated by D.M. Thomas. Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1982. Page 28, ‘that out of nothing…’ See Propertius, II, i, 16. Pages 38: lines from ‘Jenny Was a Friend of Mine’ by Flowers and Stoermer, and ‘Mr Brightside’ by Flowers and Keuning, The Killers Publishing, 2004.
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