interrupted-transmission

Gilt-edged clouds
Halfway sun
An apparition
Billowing noise – fire in the shanty town

Black cat prowling
Detaches herself from shadows-
Small birds fly from the bushes,
Like dust from a beaten rug.

Frozen puddles
Black ice.

Agamemnon looks up at the stars
Flicks his cigarette away,
Regrets the things he said to his girlfriend
Doesn’t like himself for saying those things
Showed him a side of himself he would have rather not known about
Vicious and needy.
The stars refuse to judge him.
An hour later he is asleep in front of the television. His cat is curled up beside him on the settee. There is a glass on the floor with some brandy still left in it.
The television is showing a programme about the Galileo space probe.

Brenda is at night school. She is taking notes on fiscal policy. The lecturer is wearing a burgundy blazer, a grey shirt and a stripy tie. He has grey hair with a side parting. He has a thin face, light stubble. His skin is coarse. He has a peculiar smell.
Because she is tired and the lecture does not interest her and is delivered in a characterless monotone \Brenda is finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate.
She doodles in the margin. She draws flowers and spirals and girls with pigtails.
Brenda has a plump curvy figure which is appreciated by the men in her class.

Cleopatra is shopping for a new dress. The shop girl who is very slender and pretty is keen to make a sale. ‘Oh, you look divine, that dress was made for you!’

In an effort to regain lost inspiration a poet somewhere is invoking a spirit he can’t bring himself to believe in. He has switched the lights off and closed the curtains. It’s no good. He has strayed too far. He will never find his way back.