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.

Camden Night

The moon has lost its way,
Meandering home,
Like the drunkard it is.

Pale outlaws wait
By Camden tube.
At bay in restless pubs,
Prophets ignore the hour.

On Camden Road, you can hear
Old men in bedsits
Berating the night.

The canal, which their ancestors dug,
Glints oddly, as if it understood:
Despair is the city’s fate,

Its heart of clay,
Beating back generations.

Future Thoughts

My favourite day of the week

Is tomorrow.

And, if I should find myself there,

One day,

Stepping from a time machine,

I won't wake up,

But walk on regardless.

Facing Up

Spent the day on Facebook

Checking out the sites.
The past won’t feel the same
Without you.

Each image hides a clue,
Virtual or actual.
False or True,
Fate plays our tune.

I sometimes feel
The dark side
Of the mirror
Is where we live most.

So then, it’s no crime
To be out here again,
Wandering the streets
Of Cyberspace.

Second Thoughts

Remember that chap

Who fell asleep,
And woke to a world of the blind,
Where Triffids ruled?

This story might never be written
Without him.

A bit like prophecy:
We wake in the dark
To a world only we can see;

And spend the rest of the night
Checking the room
For monsters.

Γέρωντος

for my Father

How must it have been for you,

Growing up all those years

When truth made sense,

Despite war, chaos, death,

The stuff you’d read at school;

The turning of the spheres,

Like some vast cinematic reel,

As time swept by;

And, later, love.

Gazing at the screen,

You saw the years implode

Into a storm of doubt,

Obscuring the past;

And soon the walls of certainty

Came tumbling down:

Truth, power, authority, respect.

You took your sword stick from its case

And marched the streets

Scowling at the young.

We scoffed at your vision then,

As you might gaze on ours:

Caught up in novelty, like tourists,

Clicking away at every world of choice,

As if photography

Will save us.



Angel Heights

for Peter

Remember the day you almost died
in that disco in LA;
or how, the next week, we climbed
those sharp hillsides,
dodging snakes and God knows what,
hauling ourselves up through the smog
into the double Os
of Hollywood?

Not owning a camera then
makes sense,
as I think back
to hidden days:
cruising to siren choirs
on distant freeways;
trailing Mulholland at night
in love with the downtown lights;
brunching at dawn at Schwab’s,
acting lost scenes from “Sunset Boulevard”
and  “Day of the Locust”;
half-drowning at Paradise Cove,
as we took on the Pacific;
then, half-way home
on 101,
our last spare burst;

Or when,
burnt-out round the pool
in Burbank or Van Nuys,
dining on Coors,
our pot-luck finally turned:
sneaking gourmet-garbage from bins
by Valley stores;
panning Venice streets for crumbs.

Everyone needs to eat, they say;
so, just the other day,
when I called your house on stilts,
high over Cahuenga Pass,
and you answered - for once,
I knew from your voice,
despite its claim
to sanity and fame,
no matter how far we ride,
hunger for moments lost.
the best and worst of times,
is all we really had
and have
to guide us.