The Silver Beetles “Straight from Hamburg”
Performed a mid-week evening
At the former ‘Cheese Hall’ Crewe
Some seventeen dancers attended
The group has a ‘tough leather’ image
Though some remarked their ‘beat’
Owed too much to Johnny Kidd
And they had such an odd daft humour
It kept breaking out interrupting
Their repertoire between each song and sometimes
Right in the midst of proceedings
Well we didn’t think too much of this
We didn’t know quite what to make of it
We don’t think we’ll book them again
JOSEPH DROPS ‘THE DREAMCOAT’
A joe in the know
Will robe in cubistic persuasion
Seek not to bring down the heat
Nor seem to lead the parade
He shall hang loose in unstructured suits
Choose shoes whose action is low
Hike South on the slopes of the Steinway
Re-aligning his wig
A shape in a drape
A solid cat
Say you play the pipes or pound the skins
For meagre white-sliced bread
With the jive of the wine-bar cowboys
Bending your sounds out of shape?
This town will prune your pach-fuzz in a second
A cat learns how to breathe not blow his jets
Make it with a nod or hi-fi smile
Stand up clean at righteous brother law
And if it’s country mush straight off the cob
Set it aside
Keeping lamps trimmed low to know
His grits from groceries –
A Modernista mister about town
Disdaining done-for denim corduroys
Aviator shades and Ginsberg beards
Leather patches over tweed
Bookish elbows – weird!
Suggesting artists unsubscribe
To nervously over-masculinised
Signifiers in their stiff materials
Stetson string-tie cowboy suits
Affected now by Bobby D? –
Even forced to ride a horse
Who would dress that way?
(“Is it trolling Bob?”)
A simple elegance makes sense
Harmonising elements with spheres
Or sympathetic mind might run amok
Reflecting global conflict by its dress
Every social ill dictating fashion –
Then what is left of Eden’s nakedness?
‘Clean Living for Foul Times’
Bernard Saint
Illustration: Claire Palmer