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The Record Cover. Romeo and Juliet.

This cover makes more urgent still their loves enigma. With fond familiarity it reconstructs the props and tackle

Of their grief and so devines an inward theatre For our private play, in preparation for the probing orchestra.

Everyman's Juliet has licence here, where the magic Of a more than marvellous moon attracts a tide of unfulfilled

Desires and roses like red regrets graft their nostalgia

To that trellised balcony. How many unplayed parts Leap to the same conclusion in this scented vault. Cherishing deaths dark defeat, who formerly have fled When deaths shadow crossed them in a crowded street.

Protecting the illusion of his innocence, a man might wonder

Why he lost the midnight passion of his star-crossed youth

And setting free his favourite ghost, discover its likeness

To the honeyed girl who smiles as she passes

In the morning train. She likewise, dreams of a demon lover

With manners like a movie star who, one day

Will mount her desires and ride them panting,

Until the stars explode. Once put on, the mystery decays;

While flesh assumes the flush of supernatural ecstasy.

Worshipping the sexual grail. Yet, never having understood

The myth, cannot believe it when the love potions fail.

Peter Bland.