Written and illustrated by Remo between the ages of 22 and 25
Man About Town
He sleeps with the females
he sees in the street
in a bedroom
behind
his mind.
Calangute
Seaside mother of
sand and coca-cola,
is your eye
leaking?
Turn over, let me see your orange.
I am thirsty.
When you lift your skirt up
over your knee,
who turns to see?
Do they lose themselves in the
layers of make-up they have
stuck on your face?
The white washers will come again
soya bean sauce and yellow mellow
rubber polluted veins
in the rains.
And then the sun… again.
Alvila
She smiled her way through
crumbling hearts
without really meaning to hurt.
She wasn’t really a flirt.
She’d just smile away
her guilt-free way
and say
she wasn’t furniture nailed to the ground.
And they tried to have her tied
to their lives
like a horse to a cart.
She neighed and flayed and raised
her hoofs and kicked behind
[actually, she just smiled]
and galloped away
to freer lands.
* * *
And she crossed the green green fields
and across the high high hills
she saw someone new.
She said oh, he’ll do.
So she met him, he met her,
and they met each other and were happy.
And then she went weary
all tensed like a rabbit
[just a force of habit]
waiting for him to tighten his grip
on her soul.
He didn’t and
he smiled and
she smiled and
they smiled and
lived free as jail birds after release.
* * *
So she said you’re my man;
you’re as cool as I am;
I’ll stay and be your woman.
* * *
I neighed and flayed and raised
my hoofs and kicked behind
[actually, I just smiled]
and galloped a w a y
across the high high hills
I crossed the green green fields
on to freer lands…
One Evening in St. Michel
I met a long-haired young belle
down in Boulevard St. Michel
she said hey man, you’re coming from India
I can tell
it’s my favourite country
and I love Indian men, you know?
Do you know what my life’s ambition is, man?
My life’s great purpose?
It’s to die in India
of a drug over-dose.
I said well, well, well…
[well, what could I say?]
I said Why?
She thought over that one for a while…
BECAUSE I WANT TO!
I said well, you’re welcome.
India could use some
foreign exchange
any way.
Mona Lisa Teaser
I went and smiled at Mona Lisa.
She smiled back
the same way she did
at every king and queen and pope.
She said don’t you feel a bit of a dope?
Didn’t you have a tiny little bit of hope
that you’d find me looking just a tiny little bit
different, somehow?
I said well, at two francs fifty,
I shouldn’t really be too fussy.
The End
Don’t look now, but
have you noticed
how it goes on and on
becoming
nothing?
Everything?