....and now for something completely different....

(London finally surfacing)

The Present Tense

And now, suddenly the weather

is behaving as if it were Fall

sneaking into the heat of a summer

that was perpetual in that silken way

that caresses skin burnt hot in the sun

I sit on a bench reviling the pigeons;

Wishing.

Steadily the acres of forest have grown

thick in my mind such that I stare

out of my eye-sockets at the road

& see nothing but leaves

The cars have disappeared

even though I hear their engines

There is nothing but still space

Absence, a large hole

& me and a man with flaking skin

sitting on a bench in Belsize Park.

August 15,2005