Lawrence Durrell: Poem by Charles Bryant
brychar66 -
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- 1 week ago
To fully appreciate this poem you have to have read, as I have, an awful lot of the work (Alexandria Quartet, Tunc, Nunquam etc) of the English writer Lawrence Durrell. I call him English but he was hardly ever here and didn't much like us. On one of the family's brief visits to the UK he attended the same grammar school that I did, St Olave's & St Saviour's at London's Tower Bridge, locally known as Snotty Oliver's. Believe it or not, my poem is really rather a loving tribute. Larry was an absolute literary peach! The Scobie mentioned at the end of the poem is one of his most hilarious characters from the Alexandria Quartet, inventor of the patent earth-closet and possessed of a parrot that could recite the Koran! Durrell also wrote poetry, most of it rather flat.
LAWRENCE DURRELL
by Charles Bryant
Really rather a grubby little man!
Stink of Gauloises and last night's spilt gin.
Attempting to be fashionably gay,
his heart not really in it.
The sirocco was always blowing;
sometimes the more exotic sharp khamseen;
the shrubbery packed with cicadas sawing away;
bougainvillea blooming up the drive.
Hung over, groping for another drink
and finding the bottle empty. Bitch bitch bitch!
His publishers deferential but demanding
just like the latest mistress, some old biddy
reeking of the casbah and stale sex.
The awful poetry: what did it really mean?
Endlessly sprawling novels with Latin names.
An ex-pat to his very ex-pat bones
lounging about Greek islands. Civil servant
manqué; admirer of Cavafy
and Krafft-Ebbing. Scobie
his most glorious creation,
self-portrait with earth-closet;
parrot scurrilously quoting the Koran.
LAWRENCE DURRELL
by Charles Bryant
Really rather a grubby little man!
Stink of Gauloises and last night's spilt gin.
Attempting to be fashionably gay,
his heart not really in it.
The sirocco was always blowing;
sometimes the more exotic sharp khamseen;
the shrubbery packed with cicadas sawing away;
bougainvillea blooming up the drive.
Hung over, groping for another drink
and finding the bottle empty. Bitch bitch bitch!
His publishers deferential but demanding
just like the latest mistress, some old biddy
reeking of the casbah and stale sex.
The awful poetry: what did it really mean?
Endlessly sprawling novels with Latin names.
An ex-pat to his very ex-pat bones
lounging about Greek islands. Civil servant
manqué; admirer of Cavafy
and Krafft-Ebbing. Scobie
his most glorious creation,
self-portrait with earth-closet;
parrot scurrilously quoting the Koran.
JLoa4d-aevA
