revisiting, visiting, visitor...

First the final (?) version of my March 13th post Title Anyone in answer to which I received an abundance of riches in the form of suggestions for a title and also editorial advice, all of which I have considered. In some cases I have taken the advice as given. More often it has led to a process of thought which has resulted in changes, possibly which the person who gave the advice might not recognise. But still, without the suggestions I would not have arrived at this version. I will not deail them, but my thanks to all - plus my apology for sticking with the title that I originally had in mind.


Tunnels of the Mind

Still there, the hidden door
beneath the tree stump's
ivy skirt. Enough to roughly shake
the child awake to free the man -
an old, discarded corner
of my inner landscape lighting up.
A sat nav for my visiting.

Perfect concordance: intersections,
tunnels of the mind, an ancient roof-fall,
stones - all harking back
to peopling my secret land
with supermen and supreme
heroes, warriors with special powers
to save the world.

Still there, still hidden
from the adult world, extant
in reverie. Repackaged, dark.
Sleep slips the willing tourist in
who once was architect. Rewriting
memory, it is a palimpsest
of limpid sheets rewriting me.

The population change
unnerved me for a while.
Is it because I'm old
the soldiers all have gone,
left children here to waft the smoke
from air-polluting torches?
I leave it now to them to save the world.

---

and here I give the original, untitled, version for comparison:


Perfect concordance:
tunnels recalled from childhood, tunnels
extant beneath the garden. Visited
of late in star-bright darkness,
most recently last night,
then twice the week before,
and four more nights that month.

Still there, the hidden door
beneath the tree stump's
ivy skirt. Enough to roughly shake
the child awake to free the man -
an old, discarded corner
of my inner landscape, lighting up.
A sat nav for my visiting.

Steered by it unerringly,
each crossing known,
each excavation harking back
to when I'd peopled them
with supermen and supreme
heroes, warriors with special powers
to save the world.

The population change
unnerved me for a while.
Is it because I'm old
the soldiers have moved on,
left children to waft smoke
from air-polluting torches?
I leave it now to them to save the world.

---

Visitors

Jeff showing us around
the school where he taught science.
Playtime and he's taking us
to see his Science Club.
Boys, everywhere we go,
are mobbing him:
excited cries of Sir! Sir! Hi ya sir!
Then crashing through a classroom door:
Ned. Come and see, sir! Come and see!
We go.
Beside a glass vivarium, two crane flies
copulating. How....
absolutely natural! croons Jeff...
Two daddy longlegs - Ned's
face decomposes: What? A daddy
and a mummy longlegs, no? he asks.
No, both are known as daddy - but
Jeff gets no futher. Wow!
That does it then! Ned
stamps with venom on them both.
Aint 'aving none of that
round 'ere! he cries.

---

Dawn. The pigeon comes
and scatters bread across the lawn.
At dusk he's here to peck it clean.

---

P.S. and P.P.S. to my last post. Some of you, I know, will be interested to learn that John Cage's 4'33" (1st movement only) is now being offered (in America) as a free download.

In today's Independent an interesting article on the newly refurbished Whitechapel Gallery. Can be read here. Unfortunately, the rather impressive images do not seem to be available on line.