"LA DAMA DESNUDA", AND SO?

And So? And so there he is, strung up by the neck, blue in the face and as dead as a doornail and useless. Dead. Dead useless.

And so? And so we are watching him, Peter is looking in on himself, Bug Eyed Peter.

And? And Peter, Bug Eyed Peter, sees himself swinging slowly, rhythmically in the cool breeze because the strings in this bit of dimension, are all tangled up. There’s a bit of a tangled up string theory hereabouts. So it goes.

And? And he holds in his hand a handgun with fifteen rounds in the magazine that he had asked for, and was, of course, granted, to end it all another faster way, but which he never could use because he could never stop wondering if there weren’t always better uses for fifteen rounds than first putting a bullet in his brain to end his little personal part in this universe of songs jamming up the mind and other more sinister oppressions.

Flying would definitely be Peter's deal. Flying, swooping down from the stars, from the blue sky after having said goodbye to the clouds and an enormous hello to mother earth, that would be just so much more poetic a way to go out and no strings attached.

And? And I hold his beautiful, noble hand and I sing in my head.

And? And I find myself singing and humming the chorus of “La Dama Desnuda”, and, naked, naked emotion, honest bare naked emotion, brings back to me smells of a long lost Sunday roast ritual, fresh roast coffee from the Olde Coffee Shoppe at the top of the hill wafting across the street as I swing on the creamy white pole onto the open platform of the 93 bus to North Cheam. A blood red RT. Smells from the open door of old Barnes the baker’s swathe me on an errand to the I can’t remember exactly where, when death was yet to be born and I was most definitely still a virgin and Virginia was still yet to be born and her song stuck in my mind yet to be written and the little boy next door was the doctor and I the nurse, and vice versa and versa vice, and we were nice naughty naked and nude at the end of the garden in our gooseberry and blackcurrant bush dell safe from the grown ups' world a dell where the sparrows sang and swooped above and sometimes the swifts too and we were so patient, and patient and medic and vice versa, versa vice in turns and turned and took turns to examine the feel and smells of our pretty little goose pimpled bodies never ever to be so pretty ever ever again when the dreams became polluted by old wounded words and dead doomed ideas of troubles and decay and decadence that are seeded and fed and watered and are imposed by growing up under the dreary shadow of onrushing age and a reasoning that drags us all anesthetized and twisted perverted into the years of the birth of death, heralded in with iron certainties and the doomsayer drums that beat faith in and honest to goodness feelings to death.

2015, Tuesday the twenty second, chilly dying dead December decaying and they can read your mind and I can’t get “La Dama Desnuda” out of mine for more than a fleeting moment at a time, (which is jolly good cover against someone reading your deeper thoughts, by the way, very useful!) but where it took me, beauty was still innocent and unquestioned but a fear of god was beginning to be drummed in every black book Sunday morning prayers to leave its mark as everlasting as a cut scabby knee from that fall from my blue bike left me too, learning to ride wobbly, learning to balance, being taught by father whose hairy man hand held the back of the scuffed brown leather saddle, one moment yes, another no, crash bang, hurt and tears.

And? And, eventually there was balance.

Now there is no balance and the people queue calmly to be broken slowly and surely on the Born Again Priest’s wooden wheel, iron rack meat hook stretched slowly and surely to death and all the happier for it too, don’t you just know it all? Wouldn’t you just know it? Empty looks and empty smiles copied ad infinitum as joints dislocate to an orchestra of toffee apple sticky fingers in childish cheeks popping out time and time and time again to the priest’s dusty death orchestration. Conductor, my eye! Pop! Pop, Pop! Pop….

Pop!

Back then, balmy summer Sunday mornings, sparrows and thrushes dance and sing in the branches of a young immature apple tree where robin red breasts did in leafless winter and I lay in the cool green grass and looked at the clouds and wondered what on earth stopped me from floating up to them to say hello, to give the sky a hug, why couldn't I?

And there was balance, sometimes, and daddy’s old mouth laughs at my fall and my little girl tears and his rough tobacco Player’s Navy Cut lips kiss away the tears and there was him and me and mother and a little sister somewhere thereabouts and the smell of homely home cooking jam tarts cake and I was free of people and only felt a precious few persons here and there, outside of me, and no one could read my mind and I had no idea of how, or inclination, to read theirs and never dreamt I’d be able to, up to a point, when I grew out of my child’s universe of fantastic facts into a sad, desperate nostalgia burning anew thanks to a few words and notes from a haunting refrain written and, assuredly sweetly knowingly sung by Jone Johnson and the Blue Roadsters.

Who would ever have dreamt that? Not Peter, who started it all, whistling the damned tune at quarter to seven this morning.

Bassett’s Sherbet Fountains with their permanently blocked black licorice straws dance “La Dama Desnuda”, a brave beacon of light teaching me of memories of yellow Jamboree Bags from Jolly’s the sweetshop at the top of the hill opposite my infants school. Pass the ha’penny, the sixpence if you were rich or the thrupenny bit up over the glass topped counter to Mrs. Jolly for black and white striped humbugs or gobstoppers so big they most assuredly did stop you, or sherbet flying saucers powder pink or powder yellow or powder blue to melt in your mouth and fizz up your nose, don’t forget the change love!

And? And all children have a smell for the fear of the void before death is born to them, and it’s a different perfume for each and every one of them and my smell of the void was a kind of sweet schooldinnery scent of food prepared in institutions served on thick imperfect looking canteen crockery tugging at nerve endings infants and junior schooldays.

And? And it comes back sometimes, when you least expect it.

Blue nostalgia, but it’s always blue, powder blue, royal blue, ultramarine, deep rich blue, Blue Roadsters blues, fancy blue diamond blue, except for “La Dama Desnuda” which is exotic, is hot, hot and red and blood red alive and kicking and kicking with life.

Who would ever have dreamt up the trouble it would all cause? Not Peter, who started it all off, whistling the damned tune at quarter to seven this morning. I'll just have to try out one of my tunes on him one day, get mine in there first.**

And? And it all comes back sometimes, especially when you least expect it.

Thank you The Naked Lady, thank you very much! Thank you Peter!

And? And I hold his beautiful, noble hand and I sing out loud in my head and I have a meaningful, happy smile on my face.

And? And this is not the end.

**‘cause you know now I’m the man that looks around and here’s my shadow on the ground, just the two of us, the two of us. The two of us...nomads, the nomads, the nomads...

THE SONG THAT LOU REED NEVER WROTE