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Geoff Stevens

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Awakening after altercation and subsequent re-allocation of screams

Do you ever think of me, thrown into my ghost house,
as you lie down in your two-sided dream room,
with the woods whistling on one side,
branches bending events in the passing wind,
and main lines pulling bogeys through the night;
whilst on the other, feline bodies
sally forth in moonlight
onto your lawnlaid, hiccupy-hiccupy, rockery-piled,
garden of bushes and flowers (everything roses?),
rhubarb! rhubarb! rhubarb!
And why should you do so,
sleeping well in your ding-dong dell
of a dipping bed, with everything
coming up as you want it to, in the pale moonlight,
and whatever spooks, neighing in the mareish night,
not family, but an unrelated history,
passing by in a comfortable frieze of cold presentation,
which you can shrug off, farm out, or observe
without even warming to anything,
let alone burning in its ashes,
and, with your baby doll short shift,
eject everything that night put the frighteners on.
There are no alarms for you
in your unwound spring morning,
as the bluebells chime
and the daffodils blow your trumpet.

 

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