And tears descending from her eye
She softly bade me "adieu"!
O; with an aching heart & brain
I look my way through fields & glen
Besprinkled with dew.

Cinderella's Palace

"Ah make we most of what we yet may spend
Before we too in the dust descend" -Omar Khayyam

The castle rises above the super lush meadows
To stand silhouetted against the forever summer sky
A realer than real Warwick or Windsor
Its turreted roofscape
Fortified with galleries of battlement
That have never seen loosed arrows or boiling oil
Memories hark back to days
When this gothic fantasy grew up
Still survives unchanged
By the nerest thread of chance
In the delicate stairs & corridors
With its pallid watercolours
And its wrinkled old runner & early electric lights
In their opal glass shades
Makes a little corner of Cheltenham
In a very foreign field
The Maharajah is never expected back
So the palace servants squat in the shade
Of formal creeper clad doorways
The staircase to the ballroom
Will never see again the sweep of ballgowns
And the strange tripods that stand
With one foot extended to balance
On the steep steps that will never again
Be draped with potted ferns
The ballroom itself is sounded asleep
Like a palace in a fairytale
Or does the crystal sofa
Wait in gloom for Cinderella's prince?

SIGNED-ALAN "GADZOOK" PANGBORN
Cinderella's palace is a real structure;seat of the Maharajah of Mysore; modern day Bangalore. Decaying Splendour.

BACKWATERS

The rain scourged the timbers of the skiff incessantly
And its soft patter induced melancholy thoughts
And the wind whistled as it flew down
Into the boat’s battered bottom through a rift
Where some loose splinters of wood were rattling together
A disquieting & depressing sound
The waves of the river were splashing on the shore
And sounded so monotonous & hopeless
Just as if they were something unbearably dull & heavy
Which was boring them into utter disgust
Something from which they wanted to run away
And yet were obliged to talk about all the same;
The sound of the rain blended with their splashing
And the long-drawn sigh seemed to be floating above,
The overturned skiff;- the endless laboring sigh of the earth
Injured & exhausted by the external changes
From the bright & warm summer to the cold; misty; damp autumn
The wind blew continually over the desolate shore & foaming river
Blew & sang it’s melancholy songs .
SIGNED - ALAN “GADZOOK” PANGBORN

THE HEAD HUNTERS

WITH A RUSH THAT MADE MY HOT TEMPLES THROB
THERE CAME VIVIDLY TO MY MIND
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE HEAD-HUNTERS-
THOSE GRIM,FLINTY,RELENTLESS LITTLE MEN EVER SEEN,
BUT CHILLING THE WARMEST NOONDAY
BY THE SUBTLE TERROR OF THEIR CONCEALED PRESENCE….
FROM TIME TO TIME,AS VANITY OR LOVE
OR JEALOUSY OR AMBITION MAY MOVE HIM,
ONE CREEPS FORTH WITH HIS TOMAHAWK
AND TAKES UP THE SILENT TRAIL….
BACK HE COMES, TRIUMPHANT,
BEARING THE SEVERED GORY HEAD OF HIS VICTIM….
HIS PARTICULAR WHITE OR BROWN MAID LINGERS,
WITH FLUTTERING BOSOM,
CASTING SOFT TIGER’S EYES AT THE EVIDENCE OF HIS LOVE FOR HER.

SIGNED- ALAN “GADZOOK” PANGBORN

ROADS

ROADS OF DESTINY
I GO TO SEEK MANY ROADS
WHAT IS TO BE TRUE. TRUE HEART & STRONG,
WITH LOVE TO LIGHT-
WILL THEY NOT BEAR ME IN THE FIGHT
TO ORDER, SHUN OR WIELD OR MOULD
MY DESTINY?
THREE LEAGUES THEN, THE ROAD RAN,
AND TURNED INTO A PUZZLE.
IT JOINED WITH ANOTHER & A LARGER ROAD
AT RIGHT ANGLES.
I STOOD, UNCERTAIN FOR WHILE ,
WHETHER TO TAKE THE ROAD TO LEFT
OR WHETHER TO TAKE THE ROAD TO RIGHT
AND THEN SAT MYSELF TO REST UPON MY SIDE.

SIGNED - ALAN “GADZOOK” PANGBORN

CITYSCAPES

THE CITY HIDES IT’S SECRETS

BUT ONE WHOSE VOCATIONS ARE IN SURPLUS

HAS SO MANY MORE THAT

IS MORE SECRET THAN ANY OTHER

ELSEWHERE BY THE DYNAMICS OF PARADOX

THE SECRET LIVE IN THE TELLING

THEY MURMUR LIFE INTO MONOTONY

STREETCORNERS AND BLEAK ALLEYWAYS

INTO THE GARBAGE PEPPERED REARS

OF WINDOWLESS LODGINGS

AND THE NEAR-BLACKENED FLOORS

OF GREASE-BATHED WORKSHOPS

BUT HITHER, WHERE ALL LAW

NATURAL & MORTAL , IS HELD

IN WHIMSICAL SUSPENSION THAT WHICH

IS SHROUDED, HAS NO NEED OF WORDS

TO PROVIDE IT LIFE; LIKE ANY CREATURE

THAT LIVES IN A NEFARIOUS ASPECT

IT MUTATES TO UNEARTH SUBSISTENCE

PRECISELY WHERE IT SEEMS TO BE MOST

GROSSLY RESTRAINED, IN THIS OCCASION

IN SILENCE.

SIGNED-ALAN “GADZOOK” PANGBORN

MY BOOKCASE

A few old nailed together planks of wood
Which had somehow clung toegether,
through all the years of neglect .
These shelves which housed
all my most beloved books.
The very bookcase which haunts
A corner of my living room
Like some patient ; dusty ghost waiting
waiting for who knew what
Disaster I guess ;
or an enshrined counter-life
or may be just a more responsible owner.
SIGNED-ALAN 'GADZOOK' PANGBORN