Imitation of Propertius XVI

BLUE BOAR GATE

Don’t sneer at me: I’m used for conferences,
Have hosted Conrad famed for horrorshows.
Extended theses stapled fast shot out,
Through my bar-code, dewed with postgraduate sweat.
But now each night the frivolous deface me,
With snow, song, stagnation: thus I cry out,
But my voice falters at Rebecca's keen,
And hacks at butts cast from her chilly palms.
I can’t allay her dreams, nor tame her steps,
Nor pry her from close perturbation,
But nor can she deny her doubt’s ingrowth,
As deadlines deaden passing evenings down.
My code repeated red, announces him,
The long-haul, scrabbling raider, sans supplies.
No more than he unlocks me can I him,
His whine holds real hurt inside its dross.


MINOO

I hate the scuffed old fob and bright metal,
I hate you: where’s your right to slam me back?
How dare such architecture limit me?
Don’t you once recognise redemption’s chance?
Oh, won’t a refuge one night warmly cave
In to my coming, sparing Iffley routs?
Old Tom’s is bought, avuncular as fat,
Harley, Hermes, Kilcanon watched me pass -
But this misnomered annexe spurns me yet,
Abstract, and ugly, lacking statured soul.
If my wrong guesses, triggering their bleeps
Might chirp their mulling on her inner phone,
Though evasive as meaning, light as wit,
Weary as spans, and indistinct as ink,
She’d yet start open barely slept in eyes,
And over all dismay, would laugh, at least.
And sure therewith Katya and Amy mount
Their mirthing fortress; I type to the wind.
Mundane code, only obstacle: well, sole
One that is visible, not in myself.
You chose an obtuse target to frustrate,
Earnest as erring; I could have raised you
To Parnassus of architecture; why
Did you decide to force me to this siege?
I have already beautied you in mind,
Egregious Boar: as an Arne Jacobsen,
A Catzian wonder, I’ve oded you out!


BLUE BOAR GATE

Mannered like that, checking his references,
He turns and leaves to give Mia the next.
This muse is untouched because unaware:
But he’s upset. The boy gone mad, I swear.