Play On, Plaistow! (For Stephen)

When I boast to Monkey Swarm I'm the grandson 
of megastar Stephen Plaistow, 'Balderdash, bucko!'
they rebuke, & coo 'itchychin' & refuse to believe
it's possible a poet paid at the Post Office could know
the only celeb of any culture, Stephen 'Play On' Plaistow,
who could coax 'Moonlight Sonata' from a startergun.
Who wooed Joanna Steinway, whilst trivial rivals seethed

most unprofessionally with professional jealousy.
But purely temporal peers, even those who like Iago
might drool venom, were weeping snipers in shock
euphoric when the Maestro, Don't-Call-Me-Steve Plaistow,
molded the Boogie of the Spheres like sonic playdough,
with divine dexterity an Octopus of the Ivories,
acclaimed by buffs & hacks & posh totty from Camden Lock

to Camden Tube. All echo how they all recall
him mastering the original 'Mozza' with an elbow,
Beethoven with ambidextrous big toes. Uber-plinker,
tiger amongst tinklers, who made a man of Chopin? Plaistow,
the house hypaethral at his Innerminute Waltz. Rosy glow
& lederhosen all this showstealer wore at the Albert Hall.
& Monkey Swarms en masse chimed, 'Play on, Sir.

Stephen Plaistow!' Yes, for  humble hitmaker whose Handel's
thrilling as a getaway driver's schooling, or a yarn with yoyos
& landmines, for services to tripping out the garden gamut
with diatonic irrigation & flexihexachords, an honour's too slow,
long overdue. It's reputed Her Madge summoned Plaistow,
to inveigle an intro to Euterpe: 'Near my sandals,
thou art unworthy of whistling, Ma'am, but pain-au-chocolat

& shampoo for the wishful thinking my notations scan,
so how or what I'm playing, I don't really know.
I just play on, in my element like Gabriel in his antigravity,
or Picasso with his crayon, but should you dare bestow
on me an OBE, well, I'll have to tell you where to go,  
for talent's the only privilege to a good Socialist man 
& like all other riches it's duty to share it. A travesty

is a knighthood to me. Upon your sovereign-soft
gluteal cushion & cavity I'm afraid I'd have to go 
all 'Flight Of The Valkyries', should some investiture
be threatened! I've streetcred to maintain, you know!'  
From the circus of the high street to alltimelow
streets of breadless clowns too,  where doffed
beanies Stephen's oft lightened with a lil' lucre's

weight (tho' not ones outside a KFC in the Caymans, 
where at Zingers, tho' for kerchingers, he'd still throw
up); from London's 'Little Katowice' to its 'Little Kathmandu',
or North London where I've heard the custom is to blow
one's own Camden kazoo, tooting like a hipster on a hip po; 
or Up West where Radio 3 Svengalis go to see a man
who bloods them with S.P. fan's 'Camden Cru' tattoos:

wherever you rove, Monkey Swarms toast that one-bloke 
-symphony of baroque polyphony with a vintage Bordeaux,
the Jerry Lee Tchaikovsky of don't-B-flat peeanna.
If music was musculature, Stephen'd be Monte Saldo,
so please do play on fortissimo e sostenuto, Plaistow,
you Elton John Dunstable of masterful melomania,
who elevates with timbre of your dulcet downstroke.