Dream On

They’re coming for you,

The lives you ignored:

Those little people

Passing below,

Morning and evening.

Asleep at noon,

You feel yourself adored,

A Klee or Kandinsky,

Inventing some brave new world.

Achieving glory

As an artist should,

While clutching the duvet tight.

Dream on,

Ignoring the creak

On the stairs:

The scuffle of shoes

And murmured threats,

Spurred on by

The landlady’s whispers.

Out of Order

In the Freud Museum

At Berggasse 19,

The loo (where perhaps the great man had sat)

Was out of order.

What had he thought, I wondered,

As he pondered

On life.

In the consulting room,

A woman was talking loudly;

I studied photographs

Which I no longer remember,

Even under the influence

Of ink.

I thought of das Sofa,

That famous couch,

Far away in Hampstead;

How I'd kept watch

While you took a photo

On the quiet.

It’d felt eerie

Like watching the dead,

Or them watching us,

Which is much the same thing,

I imagine.

Leaving, I felt none the wiser,

Stepping out

Onto a damp Vienna street,

To find life waiting

Almost where I'd left it.