for Ian Sansom
Where was it written that I
should measure my middle years
by the great blank flowering
of these pom-poms – uncanny
as domes in a village landscape –
whose advance has no warning
(one day a sprinkling of warts,
the next WE’RE HERE!!!),
that love water and pacify the night?
They’ve no smell; the bees
and other pollinators shun them;
even the cats, hardly particular,
pass by Snowglobia and take
their rank business elsewhere.
Don’t get the wrong idea.
This isn’t a plangent lyric
about possession of the instant,
bright fields and flying clouds.
It’s pointless. Something, something,
middle years: they’re pointless.
The drive-in absurdity’s palpable.
The good part is you don’t need a car
(lucky, in my case) or a screen:
Invasion of the Polyhedrons
is right here on my doorstep
all summer – and the yard’s packed,
I tell you. It’s a silent feature
bar the moth in your ear.
