Jerusalem

Back to a real world almost past recall

Through spit and sawdust at the phantoms’ feet

Into an intermediary zone.

As from some party in an upstairs flat

He hears the rosy-cheeked man’s howl of pain,

Forced to do that which goes against the grain,

Then sinks back to Fat Kenny’s habitat,

In darkness with the lamp-bulb clearly blown

And finds, now the experience is done,

His host slumped on the couch; him in his chair.

The jumping up and pacing, it would seem,

Were merely part of his unearthly dream.

Exhausted, leaving questions in the air,

He slides into a kind oblivion,

Knowing, as all thoughts into shadow pass,

The dead to be a literal underclass.

Out of grey nullity to consciousness

He comes, reluctant, one fact at a time,

Aware of self, of where he is and when,

His body in the chair. Eyes slitted, Den

Notes, after the stark, solarised sublime,

That there is colour, though not in excess

Nor well-distributed. The sun, discreet,

Leans through the curtains to bestow a kiss

On Kenny’s slumbering paunch. Beneath Den’s tongue

He finds and spits out the exhausted bung

Of salvia then, needful of a piss,

Rises unsteadily to his bare feet

To navigate that unfamiliar place,

The hallway with his bag, Fat Kenny’s coat,