I’m sorry I’d invite you in, but
Outside a storm is raging
Friends are camped beside the door
Waving placards. They have nudged aside
The homeless who sat there before.

The hall echoes with an urgent need
A monstrous device of alien technology
Hangs there, blocking and yet amplifying
Scrambling thoughts into cacophony.

The blankets are all off the bed
Handed out to sundry passers-by.
Throughout lie scraps of words unformed
With scattered notes of meetings to which I
Arrived too late.

A parade costume lies all in a heap
Discarded like the summer trains I missed
Which pass by, shrieking. Creatures creep
Away and hide small heads in shame.
Dried grasses, unnamed summer flowers
Litter the table where the book of grasshoppers
Lies face down, silent. There are hours
Left unopened on the couch.

You can’t go in the kitchen: giant runner beans
Tap against the window, green tomatoes
Impaled upon their points. And gory scenes
Of unpicked blackberries smear the walls.

The view is gone – my beloved hills
Obscured by cloud that fills the room
With smoke of burning forests. And underneath it all
Somewhere in a corner, very small
And curled up with those creatures
I think you may find me.