July 1987 – July 1988 missing:
August 1988 - July 1989
In this period I decided to write up my dreams as if they were poems, as an experiment.
DREAM POEMS August 1988 – July 1989
Dedicated to the memory of our pet kitten, Nogbad, the purest being I ever knew (until I met Marina), who was too good-natured to stand much of a chance in this world and was killed on the road on the weekend of 15th-16th June, 1989, his brother Odin being similarly rubbed out of existence by the 20th century’s favourite killer only a few months later.
Ifindmyselfonthefrontseatofabus
After many things I can’t remember
I find myself on the front seat of a bus
Travelling down a road
A girl with large breasts is cycling towards us
The lorry in front of us stops and the driver motions her towards him
But the traffic forces him to move on
Just a little further up the road, our black and white cat, Thor,
Is trying to escape a man with a javelin who tries to spear him
He runs in and out of the traffic
The slow-moving traffic
At least three times the man tries to stab my pet, but misses
Thistimei’monmybike
This time I’m on my bike,
Following Kev in the Princess,
He shoots the lights
At the King’s Arms,
The junction with
So I shoot the lights to keep up with him
And out of nowhere comes a cop-car
Which pulls me up
Out gets a hard-looking middle-aged copper
He takes me to a temporary Incident Room
Behind white boards, where Blackwell’s is
I stay there for ages, just chatting,
Being friendly, drinking tea
Eventually I walk out free
He doesn’t charge me
I think he just forgot
Iknowthisfeelingican’tdrive
I know this feeling
I can’t drive, but I’m on my own behind the wheel of a car
Outside my old house in
It sets off rolling slowly but I manage to steer it
All along the road to town and into a car park
Just this side of
‘I’d better get off the road now’
I’ve only had one near scrape,
Trying to overtake a car just as it pulls out
To overtake the one in front. Both cars stop
And the incident comes to nothing
What kind of a car was I in? I’m
Trying to remember, I think
It was pink
Inmanacleforesttheysayyouwillfindthesecretofalllife
In
In
Her crime is adultery. She shakes herself free of her bonds
And runs headlong for the train station platform
She runs and the whole village runs after her
Chasing her, with herds of bulls eager for sex
Into the edge of
There they all stop, remembering the legend
I am among them. On the forest floor I find
Tattered pieces of paper, fragments of words
Among the dead leaves. I put them together
The girl is back on the platform
The platform is burning
The girl is burning
AtlastIthinkIamamusician
At last I think I am a musician
Because Frank Zappa has invited me to a warehouse
Where I play guitar with his band and sing very well
After the session he buys all the band new gear
Except me. I am disappointed.
When I get home to my house in
I find a friendly copper in glasses
Where have I been?
What do I know?
Do I know Lefanu?
I don’t, but it turns out
The warehouse and all that was a cover-up
For a huge cocaine heist
Later the bobby calls again
Outside it is still
Inside it is 43, Herschel crescent
He asks me about
Who is he?
As we talk, another copper pulls up outside
On a motorbike. This one is not so friendly and I feel
Things are about to take a serious turn
Myjobistostandguardovertwocriminalsinaroom
My job is to stand guard over two criminals in a room
My helper leaves with one of them and in his absence
I shoot the other with a gun
When the others return I shrug my shoulders
‘It’s all right, isn’t it? After all
he did steal lots of money’ I continue in this way
trying to justify myself dispassionately
then I dream that Nogbad is in my bedroom
I bend down to stroke him
And his stripey coat turns to grey,
He turns into Odin who is
All we have left now
I wake up sad, sorry for the death of my kitten
(and sorrier for us for having lost him forever)
Imabouttosetoffformyholidaysinscotland
I’m about to set off for my holidays in
To return to
In the queue at the bus station I meet Janette
As I talk to her I remember I’ve forgotten a kitten
That I wanted to take home with me
I’ve spent my holidays in a house
Up a track near a small town
So I don’t know the centre well
Though it’s too small to get lost in
So I ask the driver to just wait for five minutes
(‘no, not even that’)
and leave the station, being careful to memorise the way back
looking at shop fronts and thinking hard,
then I realise I’ve set off in the wrong direction
so I make for the bus station to start again
I’ve only gone a couple of hundred yards but
everything has changed and I’m already lost
imatafootballmatchinburndenpark
I’m at a football match in Burnden Park
And the match stops as players argue and brawl
In front of one of the goalmouths
The posts and nets are at right angles to
Where they should be
The referee gets so pissed off with them
He pulls the nets down over the lot of them
And they are caught like birds in a trap
I am sitting in the stands watching all this
I chance to look down at my feet
I find coins; English, American and
Weird African ones shaped like elongated ovals
With holes in the middle
Whoever is sitting next to me leans over and tells me
‘they’re worth nothing unless they’re in a pair,
siting together one on top of the other
making a squashed figure-of-eight,
the universal symbol for the infinite’
invietnamontheedgeofajungleifindmyself
In Vietnam, on the edge of a jungle,
I find myself in a house with many friends,
But sensing danger I decide to leave
Outside there are people surrounding the house,
Serious-minded and military,
Heavy and inflammatory
I move through the rifle butts
The soul of subservience
Negotiating the minefield with politeness
As they begin to set fire to the houses
I hope all my Vietnamese friends inside
Have a tunnel to go through to safety,
An underground escape passage
I suspect is there
At the airport as I try to leave
I expect trouble but
They search my luggage sketchily
And let me board my plane