PROEM

Nostalgia? Like you, I prefer
Times past to present, for I am not there.


i. THE DREAM-I

I'd not seen him in fifteen years or so,
A familiar, and an unvalued friend.
-At least I did not understand value
Those yesterdays, now so long ago.

Gaunt smiler-'Hold that tiger'-
                               Winter spray
Blown softly; fended by the esplanade
Bus shelter. Best man on his wedding-day,
Wet socks, Veuve Clicquot, and a rainy sea

-Green bottle-splinters star the asphalt-'He'd
Have bought the ring at Woolworth's!' The Tinner's Arms
Reached later by jouncing two-yards-wide lanes.
...