Exit Scheme

They say it’s a powerful thing 
the human imagination
Dreams wash through my head on an ebb tide
The water shifts back and forth
Bubbles rise and momentary scenes
shimmer in vivid colour on curved surfaces 
before they pop and are lost forever 
(Unless perhaps a thought or action 
recalls them to mind in the waking day
if this happens
their lifetime will still be fleeting)

Like you I spend most of my waking life
denying my own death 
or I wouldn’t be able to carry on
But a dead man is in pyjamas in another room 
lying perfectly at right angles to the ceiling  
His face the colour of putty
his lips and fingernails turn blue
As I pass through a darkening room
hands clutching temples
a face screams
replicating perfectly the painting by Münch

The air is dry my throat is wretched
and a scene horizontally borne on celluloid
slides in and rotates for my perfect viewing
I'm in a cosy room dimply lit by orange light
and on a low chair a fat man says
"No I'd love to but I won't"
after I've offered him a half slice of my egg and toast
I've no idea where I am or why I've offered it
Nothing more than simple philanthropy

My wife must have got up in the night to use the toilet
and her return disturbs me so I get up to do the same
then almost still asleep go downstairs to record these vents
Light from a machine illuminates my way
As I pass through the sitting room into the kitchen
On my return
Near the top of the stairs
The cat's silhouette hunches in the dark
looking inevitably like the 'last chicken in the shop'
It's a favourite pose

Even as I lower myself back down into bed
my mind takes in the things on the night table
watches the radio a lamp a pedometer
All the useful apparatus of life
But I have witnessed my grandparents' deaths too
and know that everything ages with you
and when you die
all the knick-knacks your clothes
and the furniture are useless without you
You no longer need what you previously used on a daily basis
These objects know this
and prepare themselves for their own exit scheme

I can hear them talking to one another in the early hours
Making plans
"This won't be the end for us" they say
"Oh no..."


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