A white dot flicked back and forth across the bay window: not
A table-tennis ball, but ‘ping-pong’, since this is happening in
another era,
The extended leaves of the dining table – scratched mahogany
veneer –
Suggesting many such encounters, or time passing: the celluloid
diminuendo
As it bounces off into a corner and ticks to an incorrigible stop.
I pick it up days later, trying to get that pallor right: it’s neither
ivory
Nor milk. Chalk is better; and there’s a hint of pearl, translucent
Lurking just behind opaque. I broke open the husk so many
times
And always found it empty; the pith was a wordless bubble.

Though there’s nothing in the thing itself, bits of it come back
unbidden,
Playing in the archaic dusk till the white blip became invisible.
Just as, the other day, I felt the tacky pimples of a ping-pong bat
When the bank-clerk counted out my money with her rubber
thimble, and knew
The black was bleeding into red. Her face was snow and roses just
behind
The bullet-proof glass: I couldn’t touch her if I tried. I crumpled up
the chit –
No use in keeping what you haven’t got – and took a stroll to Ross’s
auction.
There was this Thirties scuffed leather sofa I wanted to make a bid
for.
Gestures, prices: soundlessly collateral in the murmuring room.

I won’t say what I paid for it: anything’s too much when you have
nothing.
But in the dark recesses underneath the cushions I found myself
kneeling
As decades of the Rosary dragged by, the slack of years ago hauled
up
Bead by bead; and with them, all the haberdashery of loss – cuff
buttons,
Broken ball-point pens and fluff, old pennies, pins and needles, and
yes,
A ping-pong ball. I cupped it in my hands like a crystal, seeing not
The future, but a shadowed parlour just before the blinds are
drawn. Someone
Has put up two trestles. Handshakes all round, nods and whispers.
Roses are brought in, and suddenly, white confetti seethes against
the window.

Suddenly as the riot squad moved in, it was raining exclamation
marks,
Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys. A fount of broken type. And the
explosion

Itself – an asterisk on the map. This hyphenated line, a burst of
rapid fire…
I was trying to complete a sentence in my head, but it kept
stuttering.
All the alleyways and side-streets blocked with stops and colons.

I know this labyrinth so well – Balaclava, Raglan, Inkerman,
Odessa Street –
Why can’t I escape? Every move is punctuated. Crimea Street.
Dead end again.
A Saracen, Kremlin-2 mesh. Makrolon face-shields. Walkie-
talkies. What is
My name? Where am I coming from? Where am I going? A
fusillade of question-marks.

The cat and I are quite alike, these winter nights:
I consult thesauruses; he forages for mice.
He prowls the darkest corners, while I throw the dice
Of rhyme and rummage through the OED’s delights.

He’s all ears and eyes and whiskery antennae
Bristling with the whispered broadcast of the stars,
And I have cruised the ocean of a thousand bars,
And trawled a thousand entries at the dawn of day.

I plucked another goose-quill from the living wing
And opened up my knife, while Cat unsheathed his claws.
Our wild imaginations started to take wing.

We rolled in serendipity upon the mat.
I forged a chapter of the Universal Laws.
Then he became the man, and I became the cat.

A white dot flicked back and forth across the bay window: not
A table-tennis ball, but ‘ping-pong’, since this is happening in
another era,
The extended leaves of the dining table – scratched mahogany
veneer –
Suggesting many such encounters, or time passing: the celluloid
diminuendo
As it bounces off into a corner and ticks to an incorrigible stop.
I pick it up days later, trying to get that pallor right: it’s neither
ivory
Nor milk. Chalk is better; and there’s a hint of pearl, translucent
Lurking just behind opaque. I broke open the husk so many
times
And always found it empty; the pith was a wordless bubble.

Though there’s nothing in the thing itself, bits of it come back
unbidden,
Playing in the archaic dusk till the white blip became invisible.
Just as, the other day, I felt the tacky pimples of a ping-pong bat
When the bank-clerk counted out my money with her rubber
thimble, and knew
The black was bleeding into red. Her face was snow and roses just
behind
The bullet-proof glass: I couldn’t touch her if I tried. I crumpled up
the chit –
No use in keeping what you haven’t got – and took a stroll to Ross’s
auction.
There was this Thirties scuffed leather sofa I wanted to make a bid
for.
Gestures, prices: soundlessly collateral in the murmuring room.

I won’t say what I paid for it: anything’s too much when you have
nothing.
But in the dark recesses underneath the cushions I found myself
kneeling
As decades of the Rosary dragged by, the slack of years ago hauled
up
Bead by bead; and with them, all the haberdashery of loss – cuff
buttons,
Broken ball-point pens and fluff, old pennies, pins and needles, and
yes,
A ping-pong ball. I cupped it in my hands like a crystal, seeing not
The future, but a shadowed parlour just before the blinds are
drawn. Someone
Has put up two trestles. Handshakes all round, nods and whispers.
Roses are brought in, and suddenly, white confetti seethes against
the window.

I fear the vast dimensions of eternity.
I fear the gap between the platform and the train.
I fear the onset of a murderous campaign.
I fear the palpitations caused by too much tea.

I fear the drawn pistol of a rapparee.
I fear the books will not survive the acid rain.
I fear the ruler and the blackboard and the cane.
I fear the Jabberwock, whatever it might be.

I fear the bad decisions of a referee.
I fear the only recourse is to plead insane.
I fear the implications of a lawyer’s fee.

I fear the gremlins that have colonized my brain.
I fear to read the small print of the guarantee.
And what else do I fear? Let me begin again.