Emerald Dragon Archives

She lives with her ghosts.

Miró sits on her

Walls and walks her rooms.

She has Welsh Dylan

Thomas in her book

Case and sitting in

Her favourite old

Armchair drinking beer

From the Frigidaire.

Her father sits smoking

A cigarette, lung

Cancer no longer

A fear, there is no

Second death. Close the

Window, he says, there’s

A terrific draft

In here. She looks through

Ezra’s Cantos while

Walking back and forth

Muttering in a

Low breath. Ezra sits

By the fireplace

Reading Dante in

A creaky chair that

Belonged to her late

Mother who never

Makes visits. While she

Is making love to

Her young hot lover,

Picasso sketches

On a pad with his

Pencil, humming some

Stravinsky theme and

Bukowski looks on

Reading his poems

In his usual

Drawl. She is seldom

Alone, there’s always

Someone there talking

And walking, standing

And staring, last week,

Her grandfather came,

Pipe and battered hat,

Talking of the Somme

And lost friends and the

Beer bars he used to

Run in the East End.  

She lies in her bed

Beside her lover,

The sex over, with

D H Lawrence on

Her other side warm

And cuddly, beneath

The bed cover, he

Lectures, spits and coughs,

His hand on her thigh.

She shakes her head and

Gives a sigh, gazing

At Miró on the

Wall and hearing his

Footsteps in the hall,

Knowing they’ll follow

Her to the john, one

Of them, Lawrence, Pound

Or maybe Kafka,

Just to see her sit

There with messed up hair.