I'm imagining myself being Tom Ripley -
I'd live in France -
Wear silk pyjamas -
I'd be like a young god in my Alfa Romeo -
Amoral, charming -
I'd say to myself it had been a curious murder -
I'd stay in a discrete hotel afterwards -
The porter would say good evening sir and hand me the key -
Sunday 28 March 2021
The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset
I'm listening to Soft Cell -
Marc Almond singing -
Tainted Love -
I remember Annick -
The boys dancing round the jukebox -
The smoke in her hair -
Her skirt made of cobwebs -
Her bronze bracelet -
Christophe she'd laughed -
Those boys -
Do you see them-
Those boys! -
Friday 26 March 2021
The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset
I'm reading Ripley Underwater -
I think of Patricia Highsmith -
I picture her a beautiful cruel siren -
Her bed made of innocents' bones -
Thursday 25 March 2021
The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset
When I ring Richard, he's in the cemetery -
He's walking Jimmy between the yew trees -
As he walks, he shapes verses in his head -
He sees a different sky -
He stands at the frontier of an empty ancient world -
He sees the ruins of shrines -
The course of a dying river -
He hears laments in the wilderness -
He journeys across this world with a different name -
Wednesday 24 March 2021
The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset
I'm watching Dogs Behaving Very Badly -
Graham with his natty brogues calms a cowering spaniel -
Praises a surly terrier -
Admonishes a truculent staffy -
No he says -
No -
Then when the Essex labrador stops lunging -
Good boy ! -
Tuesday 23 March 2021
The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset
His words unsealed my eyes -
I heard the ocean through the gate of no return -
The voices at the shameful auction -
I was given a new tongue -
My bones were worn as a crown by a cruel prince -
I was one of the chattels with which he was blessed -
Everything he had came from this -
Monday 22 March 2021
The Old School House
East Stoke
Dorset
