by Clive James
Throwing reflections that rise and fall
A guitar reminds you of death and taxes
Charlie Christian outplaying the saxes
The beginners’ call and the very last call of all
Practical Man
Last night I drank with a practical man
Who seemed to think he knew me well
He had no debts and he had no troubles
All night long he kept setting up doubles
And he asked me ‘What have you got to sell?’
‘I’ll see you right’ said the practical man
‘A boy like you should be living high
All you do is get up and be funny
And I’ll turn the laughs into folding money
Can you name me anything that can’t buy?’
‘So you deal in dreams’ said the practical man
‘So does that mean you should be so coy?
I fixed one chap a show on telly
Who limped like Byron and talked like Shelley
Through a ten-part epic on the fall of Troy’
‘I’ll tell you what’ said the practical man
As he tapped the ash from a purple fag
‘Let’s head uptown for a meal somewhere
You can sing me something while we’re driving there
There’s a grand piano in the back of my Jag’
So I sang my song to the practical man
It sounded bad but she couldn’t hear
And the silent lights of town went streaming
As if the car was a turtle dreaming
The night was sad and she was nowhere near
‘It’s a great idea’ said the practical man
As they brought in waiters on flaming swords
‘You love this chick and it’s really magic
But she won’t play ball – that’s kind of tragic
Now how do we get this concept on the boards?’
‘I see it like this’ said the practical man
As he chose a trout from the restaurant pool
‘We change it round so she’s going frantic
To win the love of the last romantic
And you’re the one, her wild creative fool’
So I thought it all over as the practical man
Watched them slaughter the fatted calf
I saw again her regretful smile
Sweet to look at though it meant denial
It was bound to hurt but I had to laugh
And that’s when I told the practical man
As he drank champagne from the Holy Grail
There are some ideas you can’t play round with
Can’t let go of and you can’t give ground with
’Cause when you die they’re what you’re found with
There are just some songs that are not for sale
Cottonmouth
Cottonmouth had such a way of saying things
Phrases used to fly like they were wearing wings
Never had to weigh a word
Said the first thing that occurred
And round your head the stuff he said went running rings
Cottonmouth, what a brain
Absolutely insane
Cottonmouth would tell the girls he sighed for them
He talked of all the lonely nights he cried for them
Afterwards they told their men
I just saw Cottonmouth again
That guy’s a scream, and never guessed he died for them
Cottonmouth, what a brain
Absolutely insane
Cottonmouth packed up one day and did a fade
Turned edgeways on and vanished like a razor blade
Considering how people here
Are downright simple and sincere
It could have been the smartest move he ever made
Beware of the Beautiful Stranger
On the midsummer fairground alive with the sound
And the lights of the Wurlitzer merry-go-round
The midway was crowded and I was the man
Who coughed up a quid in the dark caravan
To the gypsy who warned him of danger
‘Beware of the beautiful stranger’
‘You got that for nothing’ I said with a sigh
As the queen’s head went up to her critical eye
‘The lady in question is known to me now
And I’d like to beware but the problem is how
Do you think I was born in a manger?
I’m in love with the beautiful stranger’
The gypsy (called Lee as all soothsayers are)
Bent low to her globular fragment of star
‘This woman will utterly screw up your life
She will tempt you from home, from your children and wife
She’s a devil and nothing will change her
Get away from the beautiful stranger’
‘That ball needs a re-gun’ I said, shelling out
‘The future you see there has all come about
Does it show you the girl as she happens to be
A Venus made flesh in a shell full of sea?
Does it show you the shape of my danger?
Can you show me the beautiful stranger?’
‘I don’t run a cinema here, little man
But lean over close and tune in if you can
You breathe on the glass, give a rub with your sleeve
Slip me your wallet, sit tight and believe
And the powers-that-be will arrange a
Pre-release of the beautiful stranger’
In the heart of the glass I saw galaxies born
The eye of the storm and the light of the dawn
And then with a click came a form and a face
That stunned me not only through candour and grace
But because she was really a stranger
A total and beautiful stranger
‘Hello there’ she said with her hand to her brow
‘I’m the one you’ll meet after the one you know now
There’s no room inside here to show you us all
But behind me the queue stretches right down the hall
For the damned there is always a stranger
There is always a beautiful stranger’
‘That’s your lot’ said Miss Lee as she turned on the light
‘These earrings are hell and I’m through for the night
If they’d put up a booster not far from this pitch
I could screen you your life to the very last twitch
But I can’t even get the Lone Ranger
One last word from the beautiful stranger’
‘You live in a dream and the dream is a cage’
Said the girl ‘And the bars nestle closer with age
Your shadow burned white by invisible fire
You will learn how it rankles to die of desire
As you long for the beautiful stranger’
Said the vanishing beautiful stranger
‘Here’s a wallet for you and five nicker for me’
Said the gypsy ‘And also here’s something for free
Watch your step on my foldaway stairs getting down
And go slow on the flyover back into town
There’s a slight but considerable danger
Give my love to the beautiful stranger’
Have You Got a Biro I Can Borrow?
Have you got a biro I can borrow?
I’d like to write your name
On the palm of my hand, on the walls of the hall
The roof of the house, right across the land
So when the sun comes up tomorrow
It’ll look to this side of the hard-bitten planet
Like a big yellow button with your name written on it
Have you got a biro I can borrow?
I’d like to write some lines
In praise of your knee, and the back of your neck
And the double-decker bus that brings you to me
>
So when the sun comes up tomorrow
It’ll shine on a world made richer by a sonnet
And a half-dozen epics as long as the Aeneid
Oh give me a pen and some paper
Give me a chisel or a camera
A piano and a box of rubber bands
I need room for choreography
And a darkroom for photography
Tie the brush into my hands
Have you got a biro I can borrow?
I’d like to write your name
From the belt of Orion to the share of the Plough
The snout of the Bear to the belly of the Lion
So when the sun goes down tomorrow
There’ll never be a minute
Not a moment of the night that hasn’t got you in it
Laughing Boy
In all the rooms I’ve hung my hat, in all the towns I’ve been
It stuns me I’m not dead already from the shambles that I’ve seen
I’ve seen a girl hold back her hair to light a cigarette
And things like that a man like me can’t easily forget
I’ve got the only cure for life, and the cure for life is joy
I’m a crying man that everyone calls Laughing Boy
A kid once asked me in late September for a shilling for the guy
And I looked that little operator in her wheeling-dealing eye
And I tossed a bob with deep respect in her old man’s trilby hat
It seems to me that a man like me could die of things like that
I’ve got the only cure for life, and the cure for life is joy
I’m a crying man that everyone calls Laughing Boy
I’ve seen landladies who lost their lovers at the time of
Rupert Brooke
And they pressed the flowers from Sunday rambles and then
forgot which book
And I paid the rent thinking ‘Anyway, buddy, at least you
won’t get wet’
And I tried the bed and lay there thinking ‘They haven’t
got you yet’
I’ve got the only cure for life, and the cure for life is joy
I’m a crying man that everyone calls Laughing Boy
I’ve read the labels on a hundred bottles for eyes and lips and hair
And I’ve seen girls breathe on their fingernails and wiggle them
in the air
And I’ve often wondered who the hell remembers as far back as
last night
It seems to me that a man like me is the only one who might
I’ve got the only cure for life, and the cure for life is joy
I’m a crying man that everyone calls Laughing Boy
Sunlight Gate
The heroes ride out through the Sunlight Gate
And out of the sunset return
I have no idea how they spend their day
With a selfless act, or a grandstand play
But high behind them the sky will burn
In the glittering hour of return
The heroes ride out in unbroken ranks
But with gaps in their number come back
I have no idea how they lose their men
To some new threat, or the same again
But they talk a long while near the weapon stack
In the clattering hour they come back
The heroes return through the Sunset Gate
But their faces are never the same
I have no idea why their eyes go cold
And the young among them already look old
But high behind them the sky’s aflame
In the flickering hour of their fame
The Faded Mansion on the Hill
When you see what can’t be helped go by
With bloody murder in its eye
And the mouth of a man put on the rack
The voice of a man about to crack
When you see the litter of their lives
The stupid children, bitter wives
Your self-esteem in disarray
You do your best to climb away
From the streaming traffic of decay
Believing if you will that all these sick hate days
Are just a kind of trick fate plays
But still behind your shaded eyes
That mind-constricting thick weight stays
When on the outskirts of the town
Comes bumping cavernously down
Out of the brick gateways
From the faded mansion on the hill
The out-of-date black Cadillac
With the old man crumpled in the back
That time has not yet found the time to kill
Between the headlands to the sea the fleeing yachts of
summer go
White as a sheet and faster than the driven snow
Like dolphins riding high and giant seabirds flying low
And square across the wind the cats and wingsails pull
ahead
Living their day as if it almost could be said
The cemetery of home could somehow soon be left for dead
But the graveyard of tall ships is really here
Where the grass breaks up the driveway more each year
And here is all these people have
And everything they can’t retrieve
The beach the poor men never reach
The shore the rich men never leave
Between the headlands from the sea the homing yachts of
summer fill
The night with shouts and falling sails and then are still
The avenues wind up into the darkness of the hill
Where time tonight might find the time to kill
Thirty-year Man
Nobody here yet
From the spotlight that will ring her not a glimmer
Not a finger on its squeaky dimmer
I play piano in a jazz quartet
That works here late with a young girl singer
And along from the darkened and empty tables
By the covered-up drums and the microphone cables
At the end of the room the piano glistens
Like the rail at the end of the nave
Thirty years in the racket
A brindled crew cut and a silk-lined jacket
And it isn’t my hands that fill this place
It’s a kid’s voice still reaching into space
It’s her they’re driving down to hear
And it’s my bent-over back she’s standing near
Nobody talks yet
From the glasses that will touch soon not a tinkle
Not a paper napkin shows a wrinkle
I play piano in a jazz quartet
That backs a winner while the big notes crinkle
And along from the darkened and empty tables
By the covered-up drums and the microphone cables
At the end of the room the piano glistens
Like the rail at the end of the nave
And I play a few things while no one listens
Thirty years in the racket
A brindled crew cut and a silk-lined jacket
And it isn’t my name that brings them in
It’s a little girl just starting to begin
It’s her they’re piling in to see
And I’d kill that kid if she wasn’t killing me
Nobody moves yet
From the tables near the bandstand not a rustle
Not a loudmouth even moves a muscle
I play piano in a jazz quartet
That backs a giver while the takers hustle
And along from the darkened and empty tables
By the covered-up drums and the microphone cables
At the end of the room the piano glistens
Like bones at the end of a cave
And I play a few things while no one listens
For an hour alone spells freedom to the slave
Carnation
s on the Roof
He worked setting tools for a multi-purpose punch
In a shop that made holes in steel plates
He could hear himself think through a fifty-minute lunch
Of the kids, gas and stoppages, the upkeep and the rates
While he talked about Everton and Chelsea with his mates
With gauge and micrometer, with level and with rule
While chuck and punch were pulsing like a drum
He checked the finished product like a master after school
The slugs looked like money and the cutting-oil like scum
And to talk with a machinist he made signals like the dumb
Though he had no great gifts of personality or mind
He was generally respected, and the proof
Was a line of hired Humbers tagging quietly behind
A fat Austin Princess with carnations on the roof
Forty years of metal tend to get into your skin
The surest coin you take home from your wage
The green cleaning jelly only goes to rub it in
And that glitter in the wrinkle of your knuckle shows your age
Began when the dignity of work was still the rage
He was used and discarded in a game he didn’t own
But when the moment of destruction came
He showed that a working man is more than flesh and bone
The hands on his chest flared more brightly than his name
For a technicolor second as he rolled into the flame
Though he had no great gifts of personality or mind
He was generally respected, and the proof
Was a line of hired Humbers tagging quietly behind
A fat Austin Princess with carnations on the roof
The Hypertension Kid
Last night I met the Hypertension Kid
Grimly chasing shorts with halves of bitter
In a Mayfair club they call the Early Quitter
