k triangle of Czechoslovakia.
You can walk Europe comfortably with a
plastic shopping bag, Western
Europe, that is, forests and country
neatly manicured. A Sunday
stroll sort of feeling. In Eastern
Europe you can do the same thing
though must lift your steps higher,
over the rubble, that is.

Under the red copper basin of the sun,
under the broken crockery of stars,
Senegal, Nigeria, West Africa.

Meanwhile, George MacDonald flees
the Evil Wood through the unreflecting
mirror of 19th-century time, a
prophet of the cinema. O cine-romance!
Tony Curtis (sword glint of light
off teeth) and Natalie Wood, beautiful
in white tulle (lungs not yet waterlogged)
in heady love. Follow their laughter
with an open-topped Lagonda down the
white-walled mountain roads of Mt. Aetna
to the Port of Catania in a blood-boiling
swerve to the red-chequered table,
and the fishing boats in the blue dusk.
Woody Allen steps from the screen
to the dead crystal lakes of Sweden. A
floppy disc of moon lies reflected
there in an Excalibur beam of light.
Clouds, too. Those ancient purities
across my triptych window-view-of-the-sky
package air as light as styrofoam.
The lighthouse beam chills the sandhills
and oceans gather up whale breath to
cloud. Our civilisation bartered on the
whales back. Love undrinkable as water.
The silent film of fantasy which is night
plays out through the ivory keys of stars.

VII

Abe Nathan dons black and says:
Nor shall I change the colour of my
dress until peace is declared in Israel.
He flies over Egypt to bomb Cairo
with flowers. The scent dispersed upon
the breeze the breath of the PLO.
He would dream the muffled explosions
in ancient streets the thunder
of looms and the moon over the Sinai
a Lady of Gallant Memory. He would dream
the sun a copper scroll, and of peace
perfumed with cedar and cypress, of
pomegranate, bitter herbs and balsam.
The thought that catches in the
throat wakes him the shout of
Iraq. I will waste half your country
with flame. He wakes to the taste
of Saddam Husseins binary spittle, rips
his garments in grief. In this clear
cut country, snap your fingers,
watch sound bounce off rock. He dreams
that one profound thought unspoken
will change the minds of humankind.
O America! a poet is a detective
shadowing himself. Dashiell Hammett,
your success too late, success too soon.
You didnt find sufficient fog in San
Francisco to cover as the Great America