LIVING WITH GHOSTS.

A WOMAN AND HER GHOSTLY FRIENDS.

She lives with her ghosts.
Miró sits on her
Walls and walks her rooms.

She has Welsh Dylan
Thomas in her book
Case and sitting in

Her favourite old
Armchair drinking beer
From the Frigidaire.

Her father sits smoking
A cigarette, lung
Cancer no longer

A fear, there is no
Second death. Close the
Window, he says, there’s

A terrific draft
In here. She looks through
Ezra’s Cantos while

Walking back and forth
Muttering in a
Low breath. Ezra sits

By the fireplace
Reading Dante in
A creaky chair that

Belonged to her late
Mother who never
Makes visits. While she

Is making love to
Her young hot lover,
Picasso sketches

On a pad with his
Pencil, humming some
Stravinsky theme and

Bukowski looks on
Reading his poems
In his usual

Drawl. She is seldom
Alone, there’s always
Someone there talking

And walking, standing
And staring, last week,
Her grandfather came,

Pipe and battered hat,
Talking of the Somme
And lost friends and the

Beer bars he used to
Run in the East End.  
She lies in her bed

Beside her lover,
The sex over, with
D H Lawrence on

Her other side warm
And cuddly, beneath
The bed cover, he

Lectures, spits and coughs,
His hand on her thigh.
She shakes her head and

Gives a sigh, gazing
At Miró on the
Wall and hearing his

Footsteps in the hall,
Knowing they’ll follow
Her to the john, one

Of them, Lawrence, Pound
Or maybe Kafka,
Just to see her sit

There with messed up hair.