And the Prose of Stevenson


Imagist,  arabesque -  Old Bill Bones'
Inn on a cliff,  a china-blue sky,
White linen snapping in a cold spring wind -
His memory or mine?

Chaos has invaded the Admiral Benbow,
Pirates are wrestling in the room downstairs
And my father is dead,  or useless,
My mother is crying -

'Jim!'  
As if it were yesterday -
Spindrift,  within;  
The illusion of time.

Blind Pew and Borges dance like Astaire
In the brain of the old divine,
Tap-tap-tapping forking paths
On a clifftop of the mind.