A DOG ONE AFTERNOON

I

        In a nearby exhibition hall

Mr Ponsonby-Smythe demonstrates his new machine

for winning back the Empire – there is blood

        all over his doeskin pantaloons.

        In a pagoda surrounded by bamboo

Miss Grace Laluah serves coconut milk,

        bananas with honey and tropical fruits …

        But who is that girl in the wicker chair,

her arm amputated at the elbow?

        Her copper hair and small breasts delight me:

the standard lamp, the single bed, the curtained window.

        She looks

                                 sad

                                 anaemic

                                 telegenic.

        Her skin smells of pepper.

II

                 Alienated again.

                 In the doghouse.

                 I am a dog and I don’t even like dogs

                 (I’m a dog and I don’t even like them).

Skulking through the streets like a dog.

Licking old wounds like a dog.

                 Something’s missing.

                 Have you forgotten

                 anything?

None of this was made for your

                  entertainment.

                  (So tired, so tired.

                  Work tomorrow …)

First there was sleep, then waking

                  then making do, then sleep.

                  And when night falls

                  and the will fails,

                  when the will fails

                  and night falls,

                  all the poisons within me,

all the poisons in which I am mired

                  accumulate in the marrow.