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Sport 18: Autumn 1997
Modes
Modes
A seriously empty afternoon—
silent, grey and empty.
Ahead, the long descent to Christmas,
that flat part of the year,
of fragrant needles and others' holidays.
Meanwhile, I watch a bleached old movie
in which a youthful Cameron Mitchell
encounters Martians in pastel space suits.
Or I draft a letter beginning,
‘The kitchen has a waste-disposal unit
and a wide central skylight.’
Or I doze and dream of a park
with lakes and weeping willows
and in which I seem to live, a prisoner.
Or I write a reminiscence beginning,
‘The starving were stood to attention;
children were hanged while a prison band
played Viennese waltzes.’