Download ‘Piers Gaveston’ by Andrew Giles as a PDF
Andrew F. Giles
Piers Gaveston, Keeper Of The Realm
My lord King he is in France. Au-
revoir’d him at port feeling low
& he a churl. All must call me Earl
of Cornwall, even Lancaster. I am my
King’s love, Bruce lord of Scots lies
little on my mind nor his. Still the girl
is Queen but we do not see the French child
much thank God and that is to put it mild.
Ours is divine right this says my true dear
my good lord but Edward is not near
& Evreux and Valois now do file past
to report my great robes & many jewels
& office. But my King he holds me fast.
I am Perrot de Gabaston, not a court fool
to be cast out from the chamber at night
& so forgotten turn & cornered, bite.
Chanelling The Lune
You’ll get your fucking dénouement
if & when. I pronounce Balzac
Ballsack.
Bien. Somesnoop stumbled out of the crime
fiction section
raincoat rolled-on, hand hard
in pocket & fixed-up on gigolos & steak
knives at noon:
****
Pausez-vous. Je décris. Les flics blow
their cheeks over hacked-up hookers & freak
a hankering tune,
nightlife on their mind, channelling the
lune. Écoutez, I mean Maigret is sinning while
the rest of the cité is driving, grinning
shit-faced at the wheel & gripped by
shuddering beat-up music when they pass
by. Les banlieux. La haine. They’re winning.
****
Merde. Are you sure you
want to re-read the last chapter? You
said you liked it noir so
fix your bayonet mec, hein. That cemetary in Montmartre but
night-time. Cruisy. Louche. With vermin.
J’éxplique. Rat on rat en bas multiplying
hot-bodied, unaware when the door-frame
shifts; hear it squeak, creak. Oui, a leak
builds up below the boulevard, thick with
bruit broiled alive in shit and money:
le fin – someone on the front step . . .
How to say in French I open to noman
jamais &c?
Read it back to front. Savvy?
Somehow stuttered
cette dénonce: ‘Never saw a soul out there
policier, got chez moi & closed my mind
took a deep breath sighed
& settled in the red chair at the
window by the rue des E-.’
****
Books! I’m into them, right inside
that crime-written sleeve, dark
eyes lit up, a streetfucken crime flâneur with his
portrait photo sideways on, a moody cur
& fully combustible,
avec maquillage
NB night noises needed
from a dog-eared son of a bitch & ears cocked for
Parisian pulp
heaven, a tap dripping, the shadow behind burning
clope after clope laying ash plumes
easyover. Deal with it. Je fume, 24/7.
This originally appeared in Ambit #205. Copyright for this piece remains with Andrew F. Giles.
Andrew F. Giles is a poet and translator with work in Equinox, Paper X, Poetry Scotland, The Nervous Breakdown and Collective Fallout. He edits Scotland’s online literary arts & culture journal New Linear Perspectives.