I have returned, once again, to the comfort of reading. Mostly poetry and magic. They aren’t so seperate as you might think.

Johann Nepomuk Hofsinzer called cards the poetry of magic, as Ricky Jay so poignantly reminds us in his broadway show. He then goes onto demonstrate this so thoroughly, you are left with no doubt of its veracity.

My magic books are stacked up, waiting, frowning at me. About 6 books have been given me this year alone. I can distinctly recall who gave me each book, and where, and when.

One landed in my hands at a convention. It is OOP and I have wanted a copy for years. Suddenly it was thrust into my hands, while the author was sitting beside me. A planned event by the gift giver; and one I was able to capitalise on immediately by having the author sign it.

Another was given to me last weekend in Portsmouth. Again something I have been interested in for a year or so and semi-rare. The giver demonstrated a number of techniques from the book the night before, while we drank and laughed and shuffled. In the morning while suffering the wrath-of-grapes, it was placed unceremoniously into my lap.

A kindness without reason. A moment unlikely to be forgotten.

Poetry, on the other hand, I buy for myself. I choose it alone and unaided; I read a cheap paper back copy, and then I give it away. I give it to someone who I think needs or deserves it at that time.

I love flipping through those slim volumes on the train, or on a flight.

Little poignant sentence fragments entwining themselves into my heart and veins.

A travel ticket for a bookmark, and a soul at rest.

Jorge Luis Borges, Langston Hughes, William Blake, e e cummings, Rilke, Emerson, Frost, Twain, Pablo Naruda, Dorothy Parker, William Carlos Williams, Phillip Larkin, and notebooks borrowed from friends not-yet-famous. All these and more…

“Every morn and every night”

I like to think that there is a direct link in the poetry I give away, and the magic books given to me. A sort of bookma.

“Every night and every morn”

If you can dig, you find the poetry of the deceivers, the thieves, the children of night and morn. Canting songs.

Here is a favourite, and one that is easier to understand than the slang drunk others I adore.

“The Nutty Blowen

1841

By BON GAULTIER in Taits Edinburgh Magazine.

I

She wore a rouge like roses, the night when first we met,
Her lovely mug was smiling o’er mugs of heavy wet;
Her red lips had the fullness, her voice the husky tone,
That told her drink was of a kind where water is unknown.
I saw her but a moment, yet methinks I see her now,
With the bloom of borrowed flowers upon her cheek and brow.

II

A pair of iron darbies, when next we met, she wore,
The expression of her features was more thoughtful than before;
And, standing by her side, was he who strove with might and main
To soothe her leaving that dear land she ne’er might see again.
I saw her but a moment, yet methinks I see her now,
As she dropped the judge a curtsey, and he made her a bow.

III

And once again I see that brow no idle rouge is there,
The dubsman’s ruthless hand has cropped her once luxurious hair;
She teases hemp in solitude, and there is no one near,
To press her hand within his own, and call for ginger-beer.
I saw her but a moment, yet methinks I see her now,
With the card and heckle in her hand, a-teasing of that tow.”