Impromptu Gypsy Tangles

Slap-bang along the airwaves
New flamenco pitapats
In taprooms, saloons, mazy lanes.

Picasso would have chinked out
Jiggling to pluck-beats
Tapas in hand, dosi-doing from bar to bar,

Would have squelched umpty primers
Into sunset,
Smearing palette with matador gore.

We see no clued-up vignette,
No brush of charka,
No "tasks of youth leagues" chapbooks.

Just a blow of bulls in Pamplona,
A carnival of beelzebubs, monkey-monsters,
No-holds-barred tomato hurling rackets,

Open-matchbox verandas, smouldering pebbles,
Handkerchief headed English,
Seven seas of concrete.


Christopher Barnes

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