If flights of fancy all came true,
would I be me or you be you?
Best trust not fancy’s fickle flame,
Nor yield to wishing’s fruitless game.
As far as I’m concerned, I know
I much prefer the status quo!
You are my joy, my pride, my light,
To you my fancy takes its flight.
For Judy’s 50th birthday,
4 May 1995
Poetry in books is fine
But I seek poetry in wine.
We’ll pull a cork to make it flow,
Deep in the glass the verses grow.
Let’s drink a toast to yours and mine,
Three cheers for poetry and wine!
April 1995
Tired railway sleepers
From long disappeared lines,
Shoring up the earth in
My vertical garden.
In the frozen small hours,
Do your fibres vibrate
In time to the rhythm
Of the five o’clock train
Heading South to Nivelles
Or distant Charleroi?
Tired railway sleepers
From up lines and down lines,
From shunting yards and sheds
In the back of beyond,
From bridges and cuttings,
Tunnels and viaducts,
Do you still groan under
The weight of ghost wagons
with frail human cargoes,
Transported to God knows
What final solution?
February 1995
I have a homing instinct for the stars 