One SummerRICHARD JURGENS

Young mare,Pride of the Caucasian breed,

I love your wild spiritBut why are you rushing?

Pushkin

One Summer © 2010 by Richard JurgensPrint 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 lateher Jazz Age mouth curved in a little smileas if rememberingthe pleasures of her bed last night or maybe that slow morning

and sometimes she will haveher steady man in tow and sometimes not dependingshe likes to go about alone these days I hear

and she will always make her entrancejust as the main act’s coming on when things are getting kickingdown in the sweaty stallsand she’ll be welcomedby circling arms and proffered cheeksand before you know it drawn into an impenetrable crowd

well friend I think that we agree I see you stand and stareas the spirit of the music takes herand she begins to laughand shine and show her pleasureshe is a thoughtful frienda great companion in the small hoursand probably she’s good in bed

but she is ENGLISH seeand the English are great actorsso if your moment ever comesmake sure you time your entrance well

cool rools OK.

2. incredible how hard it is

incredible how hard it isto get her full attentionif I propose a quiet movieshe says she’s sure that friends will want to see it tooif I mention a new restaurant that’s recently been well reviewedshe’ll say she’s keen to try itthen suddenly she’ll remembershe’s going home to Londonor ring me in the afternoonwith news of a new deadlineor urgent travel story

well music is the magic keyto many a locked heartI think so next I bet my scalp on rock ’n’ rollbut here I put my foot in itand make a novice’s mistake she’s written books on this for god’s sakeshe corresponds with Morrisseybut still I try to drop a name or twoso I am not surprised whenlater in the whisky barshe texts that she is running latethe crew will all be thereshe’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 somethinghe stirred his double macchiatothey’re watching everyone they’re everywhere there’s uniforms on every corner

there’d been an ugly murder in the cityin certain neighbourhoods the mood was tenseI’d wanted somewhere quieter to meetmy friend preferred to move about as usualamong the restaurants and grunge caféson tour among the pretty folk who smile on the sunny terraceswith Raybans in their hairand watch the working world go by

yeah he flung his ponytail backand downed his coffee like a shot of bourbonstrange times to be in townhe’d been caught at a roadblock it was a crazy Friday nightand he was coming off the ferry from the Northand couldn’t show IDthey’d checked him outhis bicycle his briefcaseapparently both stolen he swore that he’d not known before

and there was probably a thread to his indignant storybut friends kept coming upto say hey dude and high-five himand draw him into coded conversationabout the places they all knew and it took a few more macchiattito get the point of this whole thing

it seemed our quick Californianhad spent a long weekend in solitary while details of his past were scrutinisedand he had almost been deportedbut then an angel had appeared to save himI bet you can’t guess who he saidno I said I can’t guess wholong story shorthis angel was the girl

who I’ve been trying to get close tothe girl who disappears for weeks on endwho sometimes answers messagesshe’d fetched him from the po-lice stationshe’d even smashed her piggybankto pay his bail

if we can’t ride the ferries when we wantand cops can pull folks off the sidewalkwho’re going about their businessany time they want he addedthen fascism’s not far away

and normally I’d agree of coursebut I was thinking of his great discoveryhe’d found the way all rightto 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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