Reading

 

good morning

to the wrench of tanks as your eyes open

on czechoslovakia after all seemed changed

and between text messages

doom unsonorously scrapes cobblestones

untroubled our ‘hero’ the window cleaner

climbs through the French doors

makes love in the old-fashioned way

to the lady commissar by invitation

forgetful for a time of juliette binoche

or that he is a brain surgeon

rococo top floor unalarmed

 

good afternoon

again to the brownings and equally rossettis

the italian thread going both ways

catholicism present but not spoken of

faith at the foreground

and those brontës intense as

that whole question of home as a parsonage

casa guidi the rossettis’ bolthole

place a home where the voice is grounded

christina poems that speak for themselves

to all the rossettis and brownings of this world

good evening

words in fave paperbacks of creased cover

amidst routine surroundings

you cannot live without

explosions and floods

finnish bohemians and hattifatteners

reliving exodus

cartooning happy families

their memoriser on an island in the stream

 

good night

to the drunkest welshman in christendom

young and easy under the apple boughs

turning a page turning the light off

a roof over your head

ikea pillowcases

reading the europeans even in your sleep

as one door leads to a smaller door

down corridors of increasing guilt

reactivated desire

that might be all in your mind

or the castle in a city refusing to be named  

in a time that predates books

and has never heard of such things

as parsonages or czechoslovakia