I'd crossed unmapped oceans in a ship with crimson sails ...

The girl with dreadlocks put down my cappuccino - 

She was wearing a blue velvet dress - 

Around her pale wrist was an antique watch - 

The Crooked Book was empty - 

I looked out the window into Christchurch Road - 

I saw a woman picking up cigarette ends - 

An ambulance wailed outside a newsagents - 

I turned my head to admire a hat stand - 

Somewhere Nick Cave was singing a bleak lament - 

I opened the foxed paperback I'd bought - 

I read a sentence halfway down a yellowed page - 

Conan was smiting Zyra with his scimitar - 

Crom and Ymir he breathed - one could buy a kingdom with those rubies ! - 

It all came back to me, my boyhood passion for Sword and Sorcery - 

In my dreams, I'd hewed limbs with Conan or Eric of Melnibone - 

I'd burned down temples - 

I'd crossed unmapped oceans in a ship with crimson sails - 

11.00

Tuesday 8 November 2016

The Crooked Book

Bournemouth