the post office in the 
earl’s court road
is not
a place 
for
a hurry

come not here in a fret or a flutter or
eager
to wing your most urgent missive to a lover, or to
dispatch
a parcel of import to a man already impatient in
downtown manhattan

think not
in a moment
to flit in and out
like a breeze, like a
butterfly on a frolic
to pick up a form D1 and maybe drop off
a card of
congratulations
to your aunt
in kolkata (who’s getting married
for the first time, you’re pleased,
at an age little short of
seventy-eight)

no

come here
to 
ease
away
the 
rush
of the day

experience here
time
standing still

relish
for an hour or so
(or so it feels)
what it feels like
for 
nothing
to 
happen
at all

relax
into the 
zone
where 
things do not
move
or if they do they do so
slowly

be content with the gift
of
being
as you watch
friendly figures behind glass
peeling labels
off foils and
gently
appending them to
envelopes marked
‘large’

see 
with what
deliberation
a fact such as that that an envelope is 
‘large’
is established as hands
in slow-motion
slide said envelope through a size guide
backwards and forwards
just to make sure

chuckle
inside 
as just when you thought
a number is about to flash up to call someone forward
that position at the counter now gets
deserted
and instead of three out of nine being open
there are now
only two:
let it 
warm
the cockles of your heart and sense that
glow of 
generosity 
as you say to yourself:
‘a cup of tea now
that will be nice. good for her.’

as coins are carefully counted and 
bubble bags weighed
and forms filled in
in front of you far far ahead in the queue
let your mind
wander, let it
expand
into the farthest spheres of existence itself and
contemplate
how 
wondrous it is
that in a world so
obsessed
with now
you now 
have a now
that may well last
forever

so 
come to the post office in the earl’s court road
and 
enjoy 
while you can

eternity

here
for a while

he looks with a
doleful eye
with a doleful eye
he glances at the
dancers on the
dance floor

the girls there laugh
their dresses in colourful patterns, their
long legs lithe, they laugh
not at him
not with him not
for him, just
for themselves
unencumbered
a little in love with their lives, they are
young not much younger than he
they don’t notice him at all, they
dance they
dance to the music


doleful his eyes as looks at his wife who is holding his hand

sitting directly before him she is
holding his hand she
adores him, and with
good reason
she knows it, she knows it’s good reasons she has to
adore him
she knows she senses how
lucky
she is just to have him
doleful-eyed as he sits there, watching
the dance floor
lucky she has him
lucky he has
married, has
chosen
decided on
her


his doleful eye averts her glow but someone cracks a joke and he laughs
he laughs a rueful laugh deep from within him not loud and not sharp but
resounding
he laughs a resounding laugh, a well of sadness
profound
at his
loss of himself
to his own
his very own
lethargy

why this he is asking himself but not in these words
he has no words he has no thought for what he’s asking himself he just knows
without knowing
aches without aching
longs but he’s heard it before
he wonders how did he end up here like this he knows she loves him she more than loves, she
adores
him his every fibre, every
molecule of his
she
basks in, he
knows
how happy he makes her even though
he is not happy at all
he wonders how did he end up like this
married
to her
when every one of these girls on the dance floor
laughing, moving
living
would have him
would want him
if only he smiled his rascal smile at one of them
once


he is tall
he is tall and toned and chiseled, his dark hair is rich and his white teeth are
even
when he stands he stands taller than any man in the heady marquee of some other man’s wedding and his hands are
sensuous, strong
his chest is enormous
it resonates with a laughter a roar of pain a
profound but inept
expression
of his loss of himself to
this, to
sitting here
with this woman
who loves, who
adores him


the girls on the dance floor are laughing
they’re laughing at him
they don’t know it they don’t notice him they don’t even know who he is but they’re laughing and he
he knows they are laughing at him, their
happiness and their
sparkle, their
blond hair and gamine limbs their
satin sweet scent
which he remembers from not long ago when any one of them would have
gladly been
keenly
been his
if only he smiled his mischievous smile at any of them
their laughter at their very own loveliness, the
ease
of it all of being
alive
it’s laughing
it’s laughing
at him
it’s saying to him: see what a fool what a lazy, laughable fool: you settled for
her
you couldn’t bring yourself to break her heart
she loves you she more than loves she
adores you
she doesn’t question or quarrel because she knows how
lucky
she is to have you to have had you say yes to her yes in front of the altar yes in the eyes of the lord yes to the witness of all of your friends yes with the family there, yes you had said you had said to her
yes

she gives
one imagines
good head
and she adores you
it’s easy with her because she’ll never not ever abandon you and breaking her heart
you couldn’t bring yourself to do that
and she’s nice
a nice woman who loves and adores you she
wants you
though really you’re too tired and frankly too drunk but
using her mouth and her fingers she’ll get
even tonight when you sullenly stumble back to the hotel wishing yourself with one maybe some of us girls instead, even tonight using her skill and her
expertise that she’s acquired over years of coaxing it
teasing it
out of you
she’ll get enough of you just enough to make her feel that she’s wanted she too is wanted
a little but really you don’t you really don’t want her at all you want us any of us all of us any one any one combination of us and you’re stirring a little now, see, now that drink-sodden blood of yours stirring a little and makes you want it want us any one of us now


he turns his doleful eyes back towards her
she’s holding his hand and running hers up his thigh
she notices something is stirring and she smiles at him
her adoring her loving her
awkward smile
she isn’t
good-looking
he knows it she knows it she is lovely and loving and beautiful deep within maybe but she isn't
a looker
it’s the cruel truth
but the truth
is so often so cruel and he knows it she knows it, and she doesn’t know because she doesn’t want to know that he’s stirring not for her and her clammy hand on his thigh but for the girls dancing laughing on the dance floor the girls who don’t even know
he exists
she wants to and so she makes believe that he’s stirring for her that he adores her right back
he’s looking right through her

the man who’s the heart and the soul of the party stands on a chair and pours wine from the bottle straight down his throat
the table worries but laughs
the girls don’t take notice they dance and they laugh for themselves, they are
happy, he
laughs
another roar of pain another cry of despair another
yell
for help for being allowed
out of this
mare

but now it’s got chilly and she shivers and he loves her enough
she loves she adores him and she knows she has reason for both and she knows what to do with her tongue and her lips and her palms and her fingers and that’s all that’s required tonight she’s a kind woman a bit of a mumsy and really no looker but at least she knows what she’s got in him and she’ll never cease to adore him and breaking her heart would also break his

he takes off his jacket and puts it around her it looks like a coat on her his torso is so
so enormous
she holds both his hands and he lowers his head and hangs it low and he knows and she knows it will be like this now this is
what it’ll be like
together
unhappy
in love

now with these half-lived years half
incomplete and half
imagined
wash
through me time
half tonic and half balm
and meld
these parts of me half
knowing and half dead
and let death’s boundlessness be the dimension
into which the mind expands
heal
as the adage has you do
these half-wounds that my half-heart has sustained
or make them
absolute
and true
grow
from the ground your shares have ploughed so hard
so long
so irrefutable and
grave
a tree that stands your trial tall
that weathers gracefully your whims and
that
when if and as you deem it apt
yields fruit
to other
wanderers
and give them leave to
stay
a while



[watch as video]

today is not a sullen day.
because today the rain has soaked me so
i fear that from my toenails fins may grow:
it came and cleansed the dusty crevices
between my thoughts, each drop
(and there were many many million)
sought out a crusty brain cell's parched abode
and grew, without asking permission,
there an oasis where green palm trees lent their shade
and orange flowers sprang up with a little pop
such was their urge to pattern my imagination.

i walked through camden town and fell in love again.
with london and its people. and i remembered why
so many leave their kinder climes and visit here
or if they're mad enough they come to stay:
because on such a day magnificent and wet
when water drips relentlessly from plastic covers over stalls
and drenches those who in the throng stand underneath the brim perplexed
when water soaks each piece of clothing to the body it contains
and deeper still, when water runs down everybody's face
(excepting those who wear a hat: their hats though are most moist)
when those who hatless but with hair enough to show
acquire looks of swimmers surfacing out of the pool
their cheeks and noses seem like grapes and peaches on those photographs
you see in adverts for refreshing drinks
with dew pearls sprinkled on the rosy flesh
when shirts and trousers cling to chests and legs
and in the overcrowded street an ever-changing sheet
of clumsy brollies makes its funny shapes
when in among the musty smells of garments going damp
you feel attracted to a sausage stand where onions
and thick slabs of burger meat await their frying fate
when every voice you hear hails from a different land
safe those from italy who are most likely all italians and number most
when cars go slowly, giving now and then a futile honk
not realising that by magic all their windscreen wipers swipe in synch
as if to underscore the rhythm of the human throb
which spills from pavements, market lots and street cafes
into the middle of the road, and there it sometimes stays,
then
in the middle of the road
on such a beautiful befuddled day
you can behold
a young and handsome man
in purple shorts
wearing a most becoming smile
stride happily towards the tube

as if it was july.

nude men hurriedly passing
through oxford street
at xmas time
made me wonder and wanting to know:
why are they wearing stilettos?

women running up and down the trees
with blinkered looks on flustered faces
left violently disenchanting traces
of cheap perfumes and other useless gifts
heaped upon the piles of rubbish, scattered
on the pavement.

i looked into the shop windows and recognised,
against such fascinatingly tumultuous backdrop,
myself enlarged on polished chrome, and there they were again:
one had lost a heel, another had, it seemed, by inches missed a courier bike; and there! at last! a van at frightening speed, with flashing blue alarm, turned round the corner and successfully knocked down a set of traffic lights (on red).

the music played so gently and so peacefully and sickeningly sweet the choir sang, and now i knew it won't be long
until the skies will tear apart, a staircase will emerge and on it will descend
a band of cupids playing happy tunes, all dressed up
in gold and silver and in leather suits; but
as i sat down on a bench's edge and was about to raise my eyes to welcome them
i fell asleep and dreamt i'd never wake again.
which was to prove erroneous.

i did wake up, as someone hit me with a club, a friendly officer, and asked me to go home. the street was empty now and i bowed down and picked up from the ground a piece of shiny, coated wood, and put it in my pocket; then i left, pressing my hand against my head where blood was trickling on my my collar, down my neck.

i thought for long that i had died that night, from blood loss on a late night bus
but that now seems unlikely for by chance
the other day when searching for a scribbled note, a number, an address, a message i once wrote, i found, forgotten in my coat, that piece of old stiletto heel; - and i rejoiced.

because it proved that there is always hope.

he is walking quietly
slowly
across the bridge which spans over
his restless despair
the river
looks so wet in the rain
and the birds in the water
have brought joyous pursuit they
have clear meaning but they confused it
with sacrifice

he is walking aimlessly
slowly across the sky while his neglect
is fixed on the ground such a wonderful
heavensent shower this is it is
soaking the mind
it's a worldly world it's a bridge he
walks across it's a water worth in
reality only a smile
slowly he walks

the haze doesn't clear yet
in the distance but as the soothing liquid
is running outside and inside
his hopeful body his temper
has lost its
imagination
what a pity ooh
and his fingers gently touch the railing
had only somebody seen
that at this time he was an angel.

the light shone through my eyelids straight into my soul into my central nervous system
and i asked the lamp post standing next to me
isn't life full of complexity
the answer i received was fluttered
and overwhelmed, aghast, it burnt out
and my palms were suddenly
becoming a pillow
so i rested my baffled nose and cheek and second rib
while slowly he was
crossing
the bridge?