Ces Cooks Magic Shop...

on Oxford Street
By Keith Hansen
Dancing pigeons of broken clay,
Oxford Street and leadlight shop fronts that rattle
with the moving tide of traffic in the chaotic hour before the city dusk
exhaust gas and moving tides of shoppers baiting for a thrill
at Winns Europium, across the road
Ces Cooks magic shop on Oxford Street
Pocket money or gains from games dibs at school
Enter into Aladdins cave to see the wares
displayed and dangled in the palace of a conjures warehouse
Rosaleen Norton came by immersed in plots and schemes
She sent her musical lover Eugene Goosens to the gates of hell
Could the shop assistant count the codes within the Blackstone magic book?
Les Levant performed the grand illusions, the wicked eye fooled by a vast
stage set upon a blue lit stage, oil lamps burning
manned by manikins and puppets who dance a magpie gig!
Tomfoolery as nothing ever seen before
the amazing Mr. Rooklin shuffled cards
A sleight of hand to dazzle even the devil at the lust stained corner bar
Pigeonholed.... the bank accountants delve into sinister past lives
of dwarf merchants who gathered around his table
in the basement of the Darlinghurst magicians club
Enter fools and inner city dwellers
Those who reply to true love with a slight of hand
your empire has run out of gold, and now replaced by plastic shrines
printed circuit boards and tangles of copper core wire
Come and sell your gold entrapments that weighs your soul
A trap that drowns the swimmer on the mad traffic of Oxford Street
a soft hand that beckons you to enter the shrine
of Ces Cooks Magic Shop on the lower end of Oxford Street
Glancing past the glass window, cheap tricks in packets,
show your aunt the bangle scam, what remarks she gives
Scarves that change their color and pennies vanish in your hand
and lift dear cousin with your fingertips
Make her vanish with a finger flick
Secret Chinese draws where money stored shall multiply
the secrets of your sisters hat collection and perfumed torrid letters
I strolled down to the Angel Arcade, intercity
Near the Strand
where Mr. Weirdo had his magic store
'Oh..whatever happened to Ces Cook and his Magic Shop?
down the bottom end of Oxford Street?' I asked of him my young body coiled
in utter tension

Mr. Weirdo gave a guilty sigh with lonely undertaker eyes

'Real estate has buried all magicians that haunted the strip' he then paused
'So go and see Colin Wall the Pearl King'
Mr. Weirdo turned and ate a sugar plum, poking it onto his mouth
as if a magic trick! He replied as he downed the plum!
'He is also gone to a tomb and sails the Banta Sea, with Barbary Pirates
and Fakirs who delude the gods of supernatural powers' he explained.
A Book of Exclusive Secrets from the 'Sydney Magicians Club.'
remains of a time evaporated from a now tarred Darlinghurst
Bitumen street where even magicians are half afraid and live in darker hours
They call upon those returned, to remember grand illusions preformed at the
Tivoli, a theatre erased, buried in the city of Rookwood!
The city across the Styx, the immortal double decker ride!