"YOU'LL BE SHARING WITH AN OLD RAF ACE
...TRY NOT TO WAKE HIM!"

The voice in the dark
telling me his life in a full

fathomed five voice
detail after detail after detail

stitched onto the darkness
so that I can relive it

unpick it
make it my own.

The voice in the dark
young and vigorous

so alive
so full of life.

"Jerry shot our guys...did so they did
as they came down in their parachutes."

A dandelion blown
by a child.

"Fishing is nice..fishing is calming!"
The man I can not see

moves from past to present
like a professional time traveller.

"We'd wait for a Jerry train
to go into a tunnel then..."

"Have you ever fished for trout..?
...then do a loop de loop and

bomb the tunnel at the other end...
...casting the fly far out on the water then

fly over and bomb the end of the tunnel
**** and bury the ******* at the one and the same time!"

Finally the voice in the dark
winds down as if it had been merely

a mechanical toy that
time forgot.

Sunlight invades the room
throws itself upon the floor

a parallelogram of morning
etched upon the floor.

The voice in the dark
is a gaunt old man

corpse like
mouth open  in a final plea

for forgiveness for
still being alive when

"...better chaps than I
died."

His story seeding itself
inside me

before turning
into words.