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Four Spanish Widows
Tapping our white canes we move along the pavement, eyes behind sunglasses.
Motorbikes roar past — we see the dim shapes, feel the rush of air.
The noonday heat bears down upon us, scorching our clothes.
Four black figures — our white sticks try to make sense of the road.
My darling, rubbish whirls about you, like a halo;
I wade into your study through oceans of paper;
envelopes float over back issue journals,
an empty mackerel tin lies gathering odours.
In your bedroom, rows of cast-off sandals bask;
you love them, remnants worn with such comfort,
can’t part with them, say goodbye — I’ll wear them till they drop.
It’s you, my dear, are comfortable, my favourite old man.
The Prophet
I am a dweller in vacuum, a modern seer, seeking in entrails time’s coded messages.
Once I was The Oracle. Now driven from Delphi, I skulk in cathedrals, theatres, stockmarkets, laboratories, halls of learning.
I miss the blue skies, grey-green olive groves, warm red cliffs.
Bearing an ancient curse, I am condemned forever to delve deeper and deeper into myself; fated to seek the truth, not from the entrails of beasts but from my own torn being – raw pits dripping with blood, where the Gods seem to have buried knowledge.
Eating my own self, I search for understanding, chatter in unknown tongues.
Unable to die, I learn only that I know nothing. Nothing at all.
The buoy is bobbing like a cork, receding with the ebbing tide; a dinghy’s painter is tied to it, a rope links it to a rock.
Floating, I am borne on the tide to that rocking marker; I’m out of my depth. I panic, grasp its smooth surface, safe for a moment. I dare not swim back.
Further out is another dinghy, blue and white — La Esperanza; the rower is leaning on his oars; tacit, patient, he seems to be waiting.
Rather than swim against the tide I duck beneath the nodding buoy, swim out to the boat. I’m hauled on board; it’s a hard pull back to the shore.
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