: The Rake's Progress by Brown Paul Cameron - Canadian poetry

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THE RAKE'S PROGRESS

Paul Cameron Brown

Published by South Western Ontario Poetry

Copyright Paul Cameron Brown 1980

THE RAKE'S PROGRESS

I borrow De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium Eater, the aforementioned an account of that singular Oriental vice, whereupon misplacing the volume in transit from the checkpoint, I attempt to capsulize the book's misadventures only to suffer taciturnity on the part of the staff until, the duplicity of a continued numbers game in Chinese wearing thin and with lassitude similar to the opium habit, the Chief Librarian, a girl herself of Eastern domesticity greets my queries with hushed tones and solemnity akin to a leering Siamese or bedridden Cheshire cat.

REGALIA

If the rich are different they show it with the clarity of their table as Fitzgerald decried, the breathless hush of their garden regalias, the manner in which wedgewood crystal are cleaned to a polished exactness-- the shimmer of expensive china no less repetitive than the hulking boys waiting in window stops, monsoon rain pelting the upper Punjab plains.

DESIRE

Sleep is a striking woman accosted by various men while in a dance; the warring desires thus present themselves as on a battlefield-- hunger comes arrayed with red plumes to befit his appetites, sensuality somewhat decked out as a dandy in a mauve waistcoat and, of course, there is Fear, the most thwarted of the suitors, bejewelled with a flashing sabre, rattling it from the tail of his skinny stick horse, the pale charger riding to intercept the beautiful courtesan Sleep bestowing her favours illicitly wherein she would but choose.

PONDICHERRY

Chess pieces resting upon the jade mantle piece see sampans move quietly thru warm night, rich bundles of bougainvillea crowd market squares where deck chairs extend to the Persian Gulf.

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