House Full Of Shadows
Love lingers in a locked-up house
floats hungrily through formless doors
Tall windows where a moonlit mouse
hears breathing in the corridor
Her eyes beside the fireplace
fiery in the freezing wind
reflect a soldier’s burning face
screaming to get in
Don’t turn round
and don’t look down
don’t ask difficult questions
it’s just the folding planes
between the pain
of a momentary slip
and the end of time
Two shadows at a table
making love to a candle
that is flickering and spluttering
about to go out
Upon the white piano
the telegram from Cairo
the woman at the window
is screaming to get out
Between the dustsheets and the memories
the brickwork and the wind
behind the pictures on the fireplace
the walls are falling in
And the woman with the violin
plays insanely in the burning room
as the shadow of his aeroplane
falls into the moon
The house dissolves
the house returns
the mouse running as the building burns
glimpses high above the glow
two shadows on the ceiling
dancing in a circle
above a burning candle
blown out years ago.
