I’d hang until there came the call

To freedom. To hug your crown

As you set off through Camden Town

To run my fingers through your hair

Unbeknown in Chalcot Square

To let them linger, let them trace

My shadow cast upon your face

Until, on reaching the appointed place

(The pulse at your temple, feel it race!)

Breathless, you whisper: ‘At last, at last.’

And once inside, aside I’m cast

There to remain as time ticks by

Nap rising at each moan and sigh

Ecstatic, curling at the brim

To watch you naked, there with him

Until, too soon, the afternoon gone

You retrieve me, push me on

Then take your leave (as ever, in haste)

Me eager to devour the taste

Of your hair. Your temples now on fire

My tongue, the hatband as you perspire

To savour the dampness of your skin

As you window-gaze. Looking in

But not seeing. Over Primrose Hill

You dawdle, relaxed now, until

Home Sweet Home, where, safely back

Sighing, you impale me on the rack

Is it in spite or because of that

I long to be your favourite hat?

As Every Bandage Dreams

As every bandage dreams

of being the Shroud of Turin

So do I dream

of enfolding you

As every aria longs

for Pavarotti’s velvet tongue

So my body yearns

to interpret you

As every avalanche schemes

the ascent of Everest

So I aspire

to the view from your summit

As every oilslick licks its lips

at the thought of the Galapagos

So I long to stick around

and pound your beaches

As everything that is without feeling

Comes to life when put next to you

So do I.

Fear of Flares

I have this fear:

At a glittering occasion,

some kind of ceremony,

I am waiting in line

to be introduced to Princess Di

when I realize that I am wearing

flared trousers. Flared trousers!

There is no time to lose.

Unzipping them, I let them fall

around my ankles, then stand back

to attention. Her Royal Highness,

to her credit, makes no mention,

chats amiably, then moves on.

I pull them up. No harm done.

The Fly

I’m sorry, God, I cannot love

The fly

No matter how I try.

Floaters, bloated on dead flesh

And faeces

Lovers of the stale and the excreted

A species

I wish could be deleted.

I’m sorry, God, but why oh why

Did you create

The common fly?

Spiders I can abide when they approach

At a push, not crush a scuttling roach

But the fly I hate to bits.

Brings out in me a deathwish.

Its.

I’m sorry, God, I cannot lie

This morning I a fly.

And it felt good.

Behemoth

Be he moth

or be he not

He be noth

ing when I swat

Ex Patria

After supper, we move out on to the veranda.

Moths flit between lamps. We drink, think about sex