I am expecting a visit from

Inspector Byrd of the Flying Squad

and his Smokey Mountain Boys.

I am grateful to you

for taking the stone from my heart and the suet pudding

from my head. Who the “you” is here

will be clear to anyone who knows me at all well.

That narrows it down. To less than two.

Unfurling like the thunder as it slams into the windows

my heart is my eyes, and they are fading even as we speak.

Let it rain into the shutters and fall into the bleach mills,

may it crawl into the night shift and steal into the sore hurts.

And in the morning may it greet you,

enjoyment of the stress strain.

I received a note from Chloë yesterday, in which she said the turtles she was babysitting for her teacher were proving more recalcitrant than the owners’ manual said turtles should be, and she asked if I could recommend a potion that would render them breathless and therefore more willing to obey her commands. I have no idea what she’s talking about. Indeed, I don’t know who this Chloë person is. I can only assume the note was delivered to the wrong address.

Dear Loiterer,

I have also loitered in vacant hours, and befriended boredom. And I have waited also, and know how pain feels as it evolves and becomes despair. On the other hand, I have welcomed the early arrival of the pantomime horse, and enjoyed many very funny moments in its company. Often I have laughed until I thought my bones would break.

Yours in the shape of a pile of sticks,

“The Lingering Doubt”

Why should I not publish my diary?  I have often seen reminiscences of people I have never even heard of, and I fail to see—because I do not happen to be a ‘Somebody’—why my diary should not be interesting.  My only regret is that I did not commence it when I was a youth.

Charles Pooter

The Laurels,
Brickfield Terrace,
Holloway.

George and Weedon Grossmith, from The Diary of a Nobody (1892)

It is the early evening

and I am cooking breakfast.

It will soon be morning

and I am in the half-light.

It feels like lunch time

and I am hunting insects.

It is almost midnight

and I am close to a tree, but I don’t know what kind of a tree it is.

Is this it?

The swan called from the back room?

The gazelles at large? The seasoned timber

suggesting age and perhaps also wisdom?

A weather balloon bursting with surprises?

I am hungry but from here to the refrigerator

is a long way. Once upon a time

(before records began) (people sang to one another)

I remember setting out for somewhere

and not arriving. It was disconcerting,

but “The Book of Lies” clarifies everything.