A SINGLE GREEN LIGHT

Time slows down
so that your funeral

and the funeral of your character
become as one.

The same unremitting rain
...hardly anyone came.

Dorothy Parker echoes
the end of your book

"The poor *******!"
This The Great Fitzgearld.

The Episcopalian rector declaims
that the only reason he gave the service

"..was to get the body
in the ground."

He speaks of you as
"a no-good, drunken ***

the world was well rid
of him."

As if the faded eyes
of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg

gazed down mercilessly
upon your soul

What was it Scott
the Good Book said?

Corinthians something something
or other:

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen,
but on what is unseen...

since what is seen is temporary,
but what is unseen is eternal."

You the great writer of
the eternal unseen.

Now you walk about
in the wonder of all your words.

TOAST

"FIRE. . .FIRE!"

The house was busily
burning down.

"Quick. . .quick!"
Mum screeched .

"Go fetch the marshmallows!"

I dashed back
into the inferno

& emerged
long minutes later

my eyebrows ablaze
my nostril hairs slightly singed

The fire had greedily gobbled up
all the marshmallows

for itself.

"****!" said Mum.
"****...****...****!"

slapping me
about the head

with...each...uttered
syllable.

"I managed to save a loaf
of Mother's Pride!"
I cried.

"It will have to go!"
sighed Mum.

And so, we had
some toast

AND THE BLACK BOAT RIDES THE SUNSET WAVES

jumping out of the wound
my blood deserts me

dancing now
in the sun

such fun
it's having

thinking it is free
of me

not knowing
this sun

as the false friend
it is

that will leave it
clinging to the stones

a stain
that will be seen

by those not present
at the wound's opening

"Come back...come back!"
I call to it faintly

my voice too
deserting my mouth

but the blood just
laughs in my face

as you fumble
in your many-objects-bag

pulling out
your last

Sanitary towel

tie it to my head
trapping the blood

within my skull
my red red river

a prisoner once again
of my corporeal identity

my thoughts hiding
within my battered heart

and the sea
who had thrown me

from rock pool
to rocks

laughs at the male human
wearing a sanitary towel as a hat.

"WHOAH Body-form, Bodyform for you!!!"

CIRCA 1922

Touching.

Almost but not
quite.

They lie together
exactly 6 centimetres apart

if one were to measure
such a distance

but a universe apart
in terms of the heart.

They have just made love
or rather - had ***.

Now he snores.
She is unable to sleep.

She stays awake to see
the dawn enter the tiny room

gild ordinary objects
with a sunlight so golden

even a comb, a brush
a chair

become as wondrous
as objects in a Pharaoh's tomb.

And only does sleep
finally takes her prisoner

standing on the threshold
of a dream

she sees some
future archaeologist

unearth the golden comb
brush...chair...

the thoughts in her
head

her feelings
behind glass

in some museum
of the mind

"Despair"
circa 1922.

PLAYING ABOUT IN ITS DREAMS

The snow stormed

ran around
the night

like an ill-tempered
child

and as suddenly
fell asleep

in mid tantrum.

We woke in the morning
& found it still

sleeping softly
curled around the house.

We tried not too
wake it

as we tiptoed out

leaving footprints all over its mind

and played about
in its dreams.

MY FAVOURITE STAR TREK EPISODE

Here
in this constellation

of a kitchen
that exists

only in its own
long ago

I create
worlds

bravely going
where every boy

has gone before

the clothes horse
becoming my Starship Enterprise

clothes turn into
Klingons

the roar of the range
my engines

that "canna take it Capn'!"

the whistle of a kettle
enemy fire on my starboard bow

whilst in the other dimension
of an attic

my mother misses her step
as first one leg and

then another
crashes through

the ceiling
Warp Factor 9

plaster and debris
attacking my clothes horse Enterprise

as her yelp
of help

opens on
all channels

and me Da
quick as Mr. Spock

rescue her
just as

Star Trek
begins

on our little
black & white

T.V.
How...

...illogical?

TO A GREEN THOUGHT IN A GREEN SHADE

The rose appeared
as if it had been created

that very morning
that very instant.

It's newness almost
shining.

Grass seemed to have fallen
out of a sky

like little green rain
piercing the earth

blade after blade after blade
delighting in its very greenness.

Dandelions and daises
dancing together

sharing the same lane
with the early worms.

All meeting
as equals.

Not a Garden
in Eden- but Guildford

humble in its own
creation.

This moment plucked
from many many moments

as the one to be
remembered.

Time and Infinity
getting it together

eclipsing the fact
that this is

an ordinary 25th of
whatever

turning into
a forever.