home page Briar Rose
1- Briar Rose Asleep
2- Her landlord
3- First Date
4- Her suitor
5- Sexlife
6- Awakenings
7- Riding
8- The Prince
9- End Game
10- Melancholia Is
1- Briar Rose Asleep
Briar Rose, asleep, gets on the bus
to go to work
to take things from the shelves and put them back
and then to shop
to take what she just bought back to the shop
Not everything goes back - some things she adds
to the heap that fills her room.
That fills three rooms.
She cannot reach the bedroom anymore
and hops from kitchen door to kitchen sink
and cannot reach the fridge - it's filled with ice
but hums in memory of when it was last used
a year ago, or more -- after the water heater packed it in
The bathtub works
Ignore the bathroom ceiling falling down
it's mostly down, so little danger there
the plaster pushed in corners
the broken mirror propped up on the sink
The mirror broke when the plaster on the wall came down
and brought the mirror with it
because of the leaking roof - which the landlord fixed
He doesn't know about the ceiling or the walls
or the hot water (lack thereof)
or the piles waist high of everything she ever brought inside the door
for eighteen years
she's hardly going to ask the landlord in
to shoulder barge the door
and swim the carrier bags, and hop the mounds
She'd face eviction - which she cannot face
All in all a busy way to sleep
The waist deep plastic bags keep suitors out
effectively as any thicket of thorns
she floats upon the sea of plastic bags
she still can reach the phone - and watch TV
and sleep in a sort of nest,
a spot hollowed out from the debris
and get some heat from a fire stuck on a board
on top of what was once the couch
now buried in the drifts of plastic bags
A dragon guards her, wears a swastika
Briar Rose - within thorn thicket - sleeps.
(top)
2- Her landlord
These days, you can't sleep anywhere for free
She in her enchanted thicket sleeps
but bills don't sleep - there's no enchantment there.
Except it was the bills that could get though
the thicket and the semi-consciousness.
Eviction threats are better than anyone's kiss
if motivation's what your looking for.
The landlord doesn't visit - well, would you?
We're speaking of enchanted forests here
the not-so-pleasant kind,
where many noble chevaliers go in
and are not seen again.
So what can you expect of a Land Lord?
No noble knight. He just sends in his bills
He's happy not to have to even try
his hand at redecoration or repairs.
So the roof leaks, and brings the plaster down
from two of the bathroom walls
first taking the ceiling down to ease the way
So the cooker's been there 18 years
and wasn't new back then
and the heating rings have faded, one by one
their magic lost
So the rug is a gritty, pounded felt
So? It lies beneath the thicket, out of sight
So the taps don't close
So the fridge (same age as stove) has shrivelled up
Its gasket gone the way of all soft things.
So what? The thicket keeps it mostly shut
And why should sleeping beauties need cold milk?
And Briar Rose is used to UHT.
The landlord speaks:
The main thing is - she always pays the rent
She's not out on the street - that's good for her
She doesn't cost me much - that's good for me
As landlords go I'm pretty tolerant
I know there must be something funny there
But I don't interfere - that's nice of me
And I don't even ask her for her thanks
I also don't ask if her life's a mess,
My Golden Rule is - never interfere!
For me, she really saves on overheads,
Stays in a lot, she helps keep the place safe
And never never never phones me up
So I don't want some stranger on a horse
to come and wake her up, take her away.
I want her here. And you know what I wish?
I really wish that there were more like her.
(top)
3- First Date
She managed to get out on day release
Nights in the briars, days she went to work
and walked about, and shopped, and rode the bus
but not the tube -- not down, not under ground.
It took her years. Before that she stayed in
until the bailiffs called her to the court.
The poll tax got her - got to everyone.
And so I met her - on her day release
and asked her for a date: said "Sleeping Beauty,
would you like to come to lunch with me?"
She said she couldn't eat until the sun
went down - that's how it had to be until
three days had passed, and this day was the third.
I knew it was some magic hold on her
Some unnamed charm or spell. And so we met
by night, by torchlight, hidden from the sun.
I asked to know what was this sundown spell.
"It's not a thing I bother with most years.
I'm not observant if that's what you think.
It's in our calendar. My parent's kept
a celebration of our memories.
They had to. Memories were what they had:
two refugees, Polish - Hungarian,
tossed up in a provincial Canadian town.
St John - no, not St John's: St John -
New Brunswick - funny place to raise a Jew
though there were others, and there was
a Hebrew school for after normal school.
I went along and studied - good Jewish girl.
But you don't understand - you Princes don't
get trained in anything but C of E.
This is Atonement - this was the third day
and both my parent's families were destroyed
for being Jews, and they were all that's left
and now I'm all that's left of what once were
two large entire extended families.
And I cannot atone for all who died.
It is too much. Too much.
My father already had a family -
before the war. What should have been
my brothers: two small boys. What should have been
except if they had lived - their mother lived -
then I would not be here, not have been born.
I am the daughter of the holocaust.
It weighs on me. It gets me down.
If you don't mind I'll just sit here and cry.
It's better when I cry, when I can cry."
And so we sat there with our food
kebabs in London W1
and cried, and she could not atone
and I could hardly comprehend
One trip to Dachau didn't make
of me an honorary Jew,
much less begin to understand
my own, my German, Prussian past.
The Prussian stands guard over Briar Rose.
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4- Her suitor
I thought it would be simple, in-and -out:
cut the brambles, kiss the Princess
make sure not to get it wrong way round
then hoist her up on the trusty old white horse
and happy-ever-after, the two of us
Nobody said there were the brambles you can't see -
I hated those - no way to aim the sword
Nobody said that she would be awake
Nobody said that she would answer back
Just being a Hero at all is hard enough
I came to rescue her
I didn't come prepared to argue the toss
I did get through the brambles in the end
-- it took four months --
You have to say that I stick with a job
So maybe I'm not smart -- but I am tough
and see things through
So there I was - I finally reach the spot
where she's laid out, all naked peachy-pink
and I plant the kiss that's supposed to wake her up
and her eyelids move, just like they're supposed to do
And what she says is "Did you brush your teeth?
What do you use? I use a motor brush
but you can't share mine, even with your own head
because my stomach turns to think of it
your spit and slobber anywhere I might be,
or see, or touch. And toothpaste?
You should use cream, not paste
paste grinds, abrades the teeth
you have to think about all of these things
when you prepare to sleep one hundred years
So who are you?"
And so I said my name.
"A Prince? My ass!" (She pointed to her ass)
"And do you spend your life running around the woods,
and kissing sleeping girls? Kissing whatever girls?
And you're going to rescue me? Give me a break!
You are not real. You know you are not real.
What you could do, is take me to the shops.
I like to shop. Do you have a credit card?
There is a cashmere sale on Oxford Street.
I've tried this fuchsia one on several times
although it really is a little tight - my boobs, you know
I've really got to lose a bit of weight
if I want to wear the fashionable stuff.
So tell me what you mean by 'rescuing'.
Rescue me from what? From how I live?
I know my flat is in a bit of a mess
Alright. My flat is in a terrible mess.
So what? What's your place like?
Where did you say you lived? You didn't say.
A bedsit! In Acton! Holy Shit! You're just some joke
from Acton! You think you can rescue me?
Just where do you get off? You must be nuts.
The only thing wrong with me is hanging around
with the likes of you. Where's a real rescuer
when a girl needs one? Somebody with some class!
Where do you get your clothes? You should try Marks,
at least, if you won't be adventurous
like trying speciality Covent Garden shops.
Well, pleased to meet you, Mr Charming Prince.
You're quite a laugh! So get up on your mangy
horrible horse and just get lost. You can
come back when you have bought yourself a car."
(top)
5- Sexlife
So there I was - I finally reach the spot
where she's laid out, all naked peachy-pink
and I plant the kiss that's supposed to wake her up
and her eyelids move, just like they're supposed to do
Hello. HELLO. You woke me up.
So now what do you thing you're gonna do?
Wave bye-bye? I'm awake! You woke me up!
So: you have my attention. I want yours.
Stand to attention! Is this new for you?
Were your old girlfriends all so la-di-dah
They never fucked? They never hoiked their skirts
And had it off? Nothing between their legs?
I bet you never even saw their legs.
O Courtly Love! O give a girl a break!
Come swoon into my lacy handkerchief
My ardent knight, my noble rescuer
At just the slightest hint of female flesh.
Well, look at this, and this. Look at my tits.
How's that? You swooning yet? O Yes, I know
my nipples maybe are a little small.
But you will like them. You can suck or chew
On them, do anything you want. I'm yours!
I have to love the first man that I see
When my eyes open - and I guess that's you.
Well, talk to me. Talk dirty. Here I am.
Say how you're going to fuck me, how we'll fuck
and fuck all night. I'll suck your dick and you
can come into my mouth. Do you like that?
To come inside my mouth, or on my tits?
I want to please you, really, and to love
My rescuer, my knight in a tin can,
My Mr Skinny Out-of-a-tin-can.
And you can hit me. Slap me if you want.
I want to feel what you can do to me,
feel all I can - I want to feel your cock -
your dick - your prick - I want to feel
you shoved in me - can you get really hard?
You're wearing armour. Why not take it off?
Let's see what else you've got! Where is your lance?
I want it all. I want it up my ass.
Do you say arse? Well I'm Canadian
And showing you my Royal Canadian ass
I mean my Royal Canadian Mounted ass
If you can do the honours. How do you look
In armour and a brown hat with a brim?
A big wide brim for my big hero man.
My brimming-over love-lost hero man
Come to my bed - and fuck me in my ass!
Well, close your mouth. Don't want to catch a fly.
I want to catch your flies. I don't mean 'catch'
I want to rip your clothes off, why oh why
Do you have armour at a time like this?
Except my period had to start today.
That happens when you wait one hundred years.
I hope that you don't mind a bit of blood --
or more - it washes off. So come to me
and make me come to you. I want to come
and come. I've been on pills, that's why I sleep
so much and now you're here and I'm awake
so do it to me, love me, fuck me, stroke
me. More. I cannot get enough. I must
have more. Have anything that you can do.
Don't stop now. Use your hand. Use both your hands.
Oh God. Oh Jesus. More. Keep going. More.
The rest is sound, not words. We stop to breathe.
Your hands are red. So are my legs. At least
Here in the woods there aren't any sheets
to worry about, or nosy chamber maids.
Unless you want a little something more
A plump little maid for afters, little treat
to wind down on? You've made a meal of me.
What's on your arm? How did more blood
get all the way up there? How high is it?
Up past your elbow! Never! Oh I see,
It's just the blood that got smeared up that far -
I was concerned that I had loosened up
but not that loose! What kind of girl do you
think that I am, a garage? Place to park
a car? A boat? Maybe a submarine?
A docking station for the astronauts?
The Russians and the Yanks, space shuttle too?
And thanks! I'm sorry for the jokes
about the skinny guy in the tin can.
And for the blood. And you are very kind.
Now, do you know the way out of these woods?
(top)
6- Awakenings
And so I plant the kiss to wake her up
her eyelids move, just like they're supposed to do
She opens up her eyes and looks around
and says "O fuck! O fuck! I'm forty-nine.
I do not want to live. I want to sleep,
to dream; there is no rub. The dream
is fine - I'm young, I'm beautiful. There is
no end of what I am, what I can be.
You do know that I sing? That I gave up
my university scholarship in maths
because I knew that I could only sing?
Well, you should hear me sing. The world should hear!
The trouble is, I can't find my CV.
That's all there is
between me and The Garden, or E N O.
I stopped the piddling jobs ten years ago.
Spaghetti opera! The pay is shite.
An understudy never gets a chance.
The chorus? That's where singers go to die
or worse: they wait until they die stillborn.
And demo tapes are for the underclass.
My voice is great. It cannot stand in line
with other voices to be 'auditioned'.
My voice comes first. My talent and my gift
- it's sitting here; it's sitting here unwwrapped.
If my career could be what it should be
I would move out of here. You think that I
like sleeping in the briars, stuck in thorns?
I see the time - these briars tell the time,
they grow so much per hour, per day, per week -
but if I do not move, then they don't move.
Then time is stopped, and I'm not forty-nine.
You have to understand
that when you came in prancing on your horse
and slashing with your God-Almighty sword
that all you really did was start the clock
that makes me old, that makes me much too old.
If only I could sing, be paid to sing
be recognised for what I know I am
then I could leave. I could walk out of here.
I wouldn't need you -- or your silly sword
There's nothing you can do that I can't do.
I'm just as bright - or brighter; know as much;
read newspapers and books and watch TV.
There's nothing disorientated about my mind.
I am just poor, and have a crappy job,
and gave up everything so I could sing.
And couldn't get a chance. What do you know
about statistics? Probability?
If odds are low, it takes a longer time
to get the same result. And so I sleep.
When I awake, and finally get my chance,
I'll still be twenty, thirty at the most.
Not forty. Never forty-fucking-nine.
So go away. There's nothing you can do."
(top)
7- Riding
And so they rode. For four months Briar Rose
rode on the horse behind the shining Knight -
with shining head. She had him clip his hair.
The straggly locks weren't what a Princess wants.
From Acton they would ride to Notting Hill
up on their trusty number seventy bus
and then ride back. "Where is your kingdom, Knight?
Tell me about your castle, Mr Prince."
A problem here. No kingdom and no castle
for this Knight - he's dispossessed. You try
to tell your wife you're going on a quest
to rescue sleeping maidens in the woods.
"You're on a quest? I don't care what you're on!
Your place is here, with me. I am your quest.
You can't walk out of here!" And so he ran,
and took what he could carry as he ran.
Which didn't leave him very well equipped
for rescuing. You might think someone should
be rescuing him - but he was off the map,
salvation's map. He couldn't save himself.
He set up camp. A narrow folding bed,
a simple place to cook and sleep and eat
all in one room. It had a separate loo;
even in Acton there are building codes.
But not a palace for a Princess Fair -
no phone, no telly, one bed and two chairs
three paces long by two and one-half wide.
But even knights on quests lie down to sleep,
and Sleeping Beauties too. So there we lay
in Acton, in a bedsit, through the nights
And rode by day - to work and back again -
and rode into the night to pass the time.
We went to films, found cheapest restaurants,
until forced back to four small walls to sleep.
Why didn't we just leave? Go straight ahead
and not in circles, work and back again?
The Knight was mortgaged - had his debts to pay.
And Briar Rose? That is the fairy tale:
that you hop on a horse and ride away
wearing a smile and a bathing suit.
Real people lease themselves. They have effects.
These are the briars: we have history.
Her history was sitting parcelled up
in several hundred plastic carrier bags
piled shoulder high in three rooms in a flat
in Clapham Old Town. So we had a choice:
We ride in circles - or I take her back.
I took her back. Reader: I took her back.
I fixed the water heater, cleared two paths -
left to the kitchen and right to the bath
And took her back.
She screamed.
"Just one more month!
You move! I'll pay the rent. I'll beg or steal
to pay for just one month. We could have sex
again, I might not feel so bad, so low.
I need the time - one month - to cut away
a few more brambles, make myself a bed.
I can't go back and sleep on plastic bags."
And so: she can't go back; I can't go on.
I had to act - that's all I know to do.
I am a Knight. I ride. I swing my sword.
I took her back.
The briars gleamed - distending all their barbs.
A thousand paws, a thousand thousand claws.
And there I left her. There she is today.
And I keep riding. Ride the bus to work
and back again - and check the emails, do
the paperwork, write management reports.
All in all a busy way to sleep.
(top)
8- The Prince
Lift up your visor: tell about the Prince.
He has to fall in love - it's in the script;
which is OK if they can leave the woods
but not so great if he gets tangled too.
The legend doesn't say much about those
who don't succeed. We know they don't come back.
They hang from briars, bleed dry, dessicate.
No mention of a smell, or carrion crows
disposing of the flesh, tidying up.
No mention either of how fast they die
or if they die at all. Enchanted woods
immobilising time - they could hang there
for years - dead and alive - they could keep watch
as other Princes enter, try their luck;
as other Princes fail - and get: hung up.
Briar Rose surrounded by her dream -
a dozen well-hung Princes - maybe more!
Why stop with twelve? Why not hang up a score?
A gross? A gross of corpsy swains who dance
attendance on eternal Briar Rose.
A girl needs company. You can't expect
someone so beautiful to sleep alone.
I wonder if they vote, these swains, these corpses,
a jury voting after it's been hung.
"Shall this Prince have his way with Briar Rose,
or come with us?" I swing with her, or them.
Why take the risk? What is it about her
that make the Princes want to risk their lives?
What has she got? Her personality?
Hardly that if she is sound asleep.
Unless they like a girl who's not all talk -
not any talk. And doesn't run around.
You have to think these Princes haven't much
upstairs. If ever a relationship
deserved the label superficial
its these guys and their Princess Comatose,
their pinky, panting pulchritudinous corpse.
What do they see - what do I see - in her?
(top)
9- End Game
Let's drop the myth. We all live half-asleep.
We lie uneasy - have disturbing dreams
that shake us, make us twitch - are ill at ease,
however much we try to stay asleep:
wear mask, take pills, and plug our ears with sound.
Here's where the Briar Rose, the champion sleeper
meets us: in our dreams. We sleep with her,
with all our dreams, and pray to stay asleep.
If she awakes and sees the briars are gone
she walks away - not riding on our horse
but barefoot, on her own. She walks away
out of the forest and out of our sight.
It is too great a loss for us to bear
so we concoct a draught to hide the pain -
but not our pain. We give the draught to her,
to Briar Rose, to keep her here, asleep,
with sleeping Princes hung about on thorns.
A crucifix of suitors bled dead dry
ring round our Rose, and prick her with a thorn
and pump our greatest magic in her veins -
SSRI - pump just enough to let
her see, even to speak, but not enough
to rise, to walk away. But sweet enough
that she says "More. Please more. Please give me more.
Please keep me here, and hidden from the sun,
unchained from time, released from growing old
released from hanging breasts and shrivelled skin
released from seeing that I am ignored
and insignificant, and not a myth,
but just a girl who had the will to sing
but could not face a world that will not hear -
that does not care if I should live or die.
It's better here, within these quiet briars
where I am safe from disappointing life
from anti-climax, is-that-all-there-is,
from meagre unrewarding insubstantial
failing dying rotting decayed life,
from death-in-life, from trotting off to death.
I will stay here. I'll stay encased in briars
singing to these Princes, these sweet men
sweet sweet young men, my loves, my retinue,
companions in my timeless one-way vault
where we have life-in-death, which I shall choose
shall always choose, above your death-in-life,
above your fragile, petty, witless, doomed -
your vain brief hopeless finite pointless life.
I do not take your life. Death takes your life.
Not mine! I am forever young and fair,
forever sought by Princes, my sweet men
who come to share my immortality.
You take your life. Keep your lips to yourself.
Don't dare to kiss me. Don't dare wake me up."
And so I left. I left her there - asleep.
(top)
10- Coda: Melancholia Is
The kissing bit was good. When I sat up
I was embarrassed: all my clothes were dust.
I wore your cloak. We walked. I kissed your lips.
Sweet Prince! We had our time of sudden lust.
We all start love as strangers. That can't last.
It's hope and ignorance that set us free
until we meet our limits - and go past:
past care, past help, past mercy. Weep with me.
There's no enchantment now inside my head.
You're not a Prince, as even I can see.
I'm staying here. Here is my narrow bed,
my radio, my lamp, and my TV.
Melancholia is:
"as good a state as any, I suppose."
"I don't feel anything" says Briar Rose.
(top)
London 2001-2003
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