Ferry to Tiree
At once, I was Charles Arrowby
holding forth on the art of food combinations –
English mustard with vanilla ice-cream
Washed down with a bottle of rosé
then Charles in ‘Pipistrelle’,
a foil for my companion’s art of the bat philosophising
with – it flies, we watch it fly, it is avoidable
and the Charles. Himself. Dickens! –
I lecture from a homemade plinth at Hampstead Heath
‘On the art of saving Fallen women’
until I very nearly lose my senses
down a one-way street of palindrome (A compulsive art).
Repeat (not ad infinitum) after me –
94 toL fo gniyrC ehT samohT nohcnyP.
* Charles, a character in ‘Pipistrelle’ – a poem in Theories and Apparitions
by Mark Doty
** Charles Arrowby – a character in The Sea, The Sea
by Iris Murdoch
This poem first appeared in Orbis 156
anthonycostello 