To gain access to the Cafe Royal

      one- time haunt of the literati

      with its vanished scent of foppishness,

      lingering in the mind like a sweet curse on

      stairway plush, on mock rococo settees,

      serpentine ormulu pier tables 

      and other salon favourites

us musicians were required to battle with food waste

in the adjoining alley goods lifts,

perilously parked.

 

In the Napoleon room busts stood proud

on marble plinths to disdainfully stare out

on drums and synths.

 

The alternative to this artistic degradation

was the bold avoidance of pavement doormen

to collar the Waygood Otis lift with the latticed gates

and self operating handle

      wherein the likes of Noel Coward and Oscar Wilde

      would have travelled

      enjoying its lavish mirrors

      believing in what they were seeing

      before divesting themselves of astrakhan

      to seek out those intimate corners

      where plots and story lines were hatched

      and couples matched, finally to toddle off

      to respective apartments in the shadow

      of luminous ruinous Regent Street and the flashbulbs

      of the indiscreet.

 

In the meantime back in the present

our masonic bashes even less discreet

were consummated by the obligatory strains of

Dancing Queen and Dancing in the Street.