Clandestine

CLANDESTINE

By Kim Zoe Neale

PART I

SECOND RATE SPY

I am a second rate spy

I have orders from above

I am on a mission I don’t know about

It involves meeting strangers

With contraband collaboration and conspiracy

Danger lurks at every corner

And my mission is vague

Cross roads railway lines winding lanes

Hiding in corners, a game

A trust in constellations

Blindfolded in alleyways

A game of poker with your enemy

Who is also your friend

I am given tests that I fail at

But they seem to like me anyway

Everyone is nervous on their first mission

My shoes are glued to the asphalt

Trust, mystery, fear and intelligence

Confidential plots and plans

Information is only partially given

The rest is up to you

A lot of luck might pull you through

Do I pass? I am a second rate spy

And I don’t know what I am doing

The contradictions

I am embarrassed and ashamed by

My lack of calculation

I like things mundane and normal

The glamour soon wore off

But it is too late I am now married

To a secret deadly life

My intuition says just pray

What you hate is tricks along the way

My identity is not mine any longer

I approach the meeting place

The stranger takes my package

What mess have I gotten into? No escapes

So many secrets that hold explosive information

So vast in a never ending war

I make mistakes with my glaring human nature

And a wish for the ordinary

I don’t know what I am doing

What direction left or right?

We will give you a simple test at first

Do your best but don’t let your shadow disappear

Into the overwhelming darkness

Then your existence will be questioned

As you face the honest truth

And nothing will be there

All your good deeds will be examined

Things you have forgotten

Little vanities rare beauties

Truth is rare beauty

The work you take on will be

Filled with fear uncertainty and ambivalence

Universal truths and the rights of humanity

A gangster pulls me over

He hands me a little black book with some cash inside

A rose mysteriously appears

In my hand

I swap them and he trembles and disappears

Suddenly my path is clear

PART II

TEA ROSES

Butterfly wings are frail but lovely

Like silk petticoats and stockings

Old vanity set falling apart

Sweet love hearts and cherubs

A sepia war

Gown of tea roses and marigolds

Movie star mystery silver screen reality

Dreams of real coffee after the carnage

A tarnished pearl lining

A Buddha some tea

A church and a rose

You have in your espionage kit

Of a heart to guard and protect you

The morning light of another day

Brings hope and clarity but

Midnight is buried in secrets where

You put a lantern to the cold fear

A resistance star map studded mystery sky

Ask why? Why die?

Just lie on the cold dirt

Let the universal unknown be encoded

Explain the worn out stockings you are wearing

The cold feet underneath

The holes in your theories

The lamp of your brave stupid heart

The little black book with some cash inside

Will never be in the hands of the enemies

It will never be revealed

with your Dietrich arts steadfast lies

and your carefully hidden cyanide pill

PART III

CODES

An angels voice is trapped in paper

Clocks, Rainfall, semaphores, a child learning to spell

Labyrinths to travel, mystery’s to unravel

Invisible ink card game of the soul

Cryptic crosswords, enigma machine, bee hives

Traffic lights, clarion call, wheel of fortune

Chinese checkers, solitaire, arpeggio,

clock face illuminum with ridged chimes

Radio dial silk underwear, coo of dove

Stained glass sermons and hypnotic hymns

Alchemy, apothecary, prisms and spider webs

Algebra, carousels, tapestries, psalms, navigations

Harmonics, spells, old fashioned typewriter ink cursive

Temperance of the major arcana, phonetics of infinity

Celtic knots, hieroglyphs, search for the holy grail

A little black book with some money inside it

As money is a code word for gold

PART III

ERSATZ COFFEE

In Melbourne cafes are everywhere you go

Everyone has freedom not a care in the world

Stir the froth pour in the usual glass

Feel the time leisurely pass

Drink a latte with a foam feathered heart

Feel your historical soul falling apart

Four dollars buys you a safe place to be

Under some sort of protective wing

For supper you will sing old blue notes

In World War II every coffee house is on their chart

Sorry but to you the cafes are shut verboten

Sharpen your stick to collect cigarette butts

You must hide away in alleys and corners all alone

And must stay safely to your ghetto zone

Ersatz coffee will break your heart

Serve the officer with sugar and cream

Everything you have is falling apart at the seams

You are now under a terrible regime

A yellow star stitched on your arm

They will take everything methodically bit by bit

Your thoughts and feelings do not fit

They mean nothing to them

There is nowhere left to sit

You have a little black book with a bribe to the gendarme

Just to have a cup of real coffee and the pleasure that it brings

Humphrey Bogart with cut out bird wings

To sit in a cafe what a wonderful thing