Absent your tare of words, your daily febrile scratchings -
the digital spoor of a life i can but
barely imagine, bogged down as i am
here in mundane, toe-jammed Corn Town -
I fill in the narrative gaps with more of my
autobiographical, anecdotal flummery,
taking you along the mapless desire lines
of my diary days sans heed or care
for the metaphorical holes
in your psychological boots...

whoops, careful, we're coming to a thorn bush:
i.e. a dream!...yiss, last night i dreamed
of being embedded within a dodgy, nouveau-riche gangster family
(not my own, i hasten to add)
at an imminent party, where for reasons unknown
I repeatedly, surreptitiously pissed
into a brimming bowlful of baked beans
whilst concurrently taking instruction
on how, when and where to plant bombs
for maximum effect (hey, it's a dream,
it's not supposed to make sense!)
then spent the rest of this scenario
fearing those bombs'd go off, and praying
to those Crayzee Godz Ov Endless Noise
(to whom you know i worship and beseech
as my own personal cosmogony of deities)
that i wouldn't be fingered for the crime...

i woke up just after the first device detonated,
albeit not before discovering that it wasn't actually a bomb
but some manner of alien construct
designed to replicate itself
by converting everything it touched -
buildings, trees, newspapers, people -
into the raw materiel for the task...

naturally, such a narrative would award
any analyst a blue riband field day,
unravelling the labyrinthine folds and wrinkles
of my moods, my personality, my peccadillos...

said dream persisted with me upon waking though,
colouring the onset of morning quite thoroughly
as i struggled to convince myself enough
that i wasn't in trouble - that dream was through,
over - and that i'd not haplessly instigated
the end of civilisation as we know it;
that urine in a sloppy bowlful of beans
would simply add a tart, vinegary flavour,
more condiment than insult;
and that the aforesaid dodgy family would
laugh off my outlandish behaviour
and not come for me, from beyond the wall of dreams,
and send me to sleep with the fishies
(it felt that genuine)...

mundane reality proves to be
an altogether (in)different kettle of fish though:
see, i'm still reeling, feeling tired and achey,
following yesterday's jaunt
(up the Coppice, round Spire's Farm),
so here i sit, alternately reading
(poor Vincent is now locked up and raving,
eating paint and soil, in his
more lucid moments feeling terribly lonely
as brother Theo writes of marriage and babies)
and sipping, savouring my coffee,
midnight-black and honey-sweet...

these plans brew in my head, half-baked:
to go to the launderette;
to write a poem
(about what though?);
to draw
(again, what?);
or just let my divergent worries, daydreams, ambitions
deliquesce into a soup of recondite nonsense,
symbiotic reveries regurgitating memories...

my thoughts flitter, hither and thither
like an escaped parrot, squawking in panic,
let loose to explore unfamiliar surroundings,
knocking over chintzy ornaments and
getting tangled in the curtains,
flapping its wings against the glass of the window of my eye
in desperate, uncomprehending frustration
over its confinement...

I can say this though, paradoxically:
that for the Peacock,
if not the parrot
it's a pleasure to be indoors today,
looking out at the wretched, drenching inundation
wrought upon our washout of a Summer
by this grimdismal downpour,
for the weather is uninvitingly,
decidedly soggy, swimming, weltering:
beneath murky grey skies and blustery berating wind
(oh, the trees are dancing today, boyo!)
that lashing rain is puddling the flags
and splashing against my window like nails,
a riot of teeming, racing rivulets,
assured that, finally,
I no longer need worry about any more
leaky roofs, nor infiltrating damp,
now that Bernard the roofer has fixed the slates
(6th attempt, gods bless him!)
and that i can admit to loving downpours
as long as we're on opposite sides of the glass:
the comfort and security derived from its percussive music is soothing to my soul...

yiss, well, that laundry won't do itself;
and despite what i just said it'll be a chore accomplished,
and hauling that bag up the hill
will provide a modicum of exercise,
and it's only falling water and i won't get rusty
and, and, and...

sooo, let the chips fall where they may
and the devil take the hindmost, eh?...

and though i laugh in mockery of you -
as good old friends are wont to do -
sweltering away through the heatwaves
and muggy humidity of Brittany,
I nonetheless wish you much happiness, despite your travails...

may your beans stay flavoursome,
and hopefully not too tangy...