RAIN AND LIES (after Fikrit Kizilok)

Mid-morning heat in late September,

desk top artifacts stare,

the in-tray and out-tray of my mind

play hide and seek,

ink flies from paper, from memory and forgetting,

staplers go mad

trying to pin together the untenable.

It is mid-morning here

and wherever you are,

it must be late evening for you,

pastel-coloured and soft,

and I,

I am whipped by the lies of time

of location and remembrance.

I am told there's bright sunshine

rising in a stupor from the road outside

but it is raining here

and drenched in a time-squeeze

I am visited by teardrop and sigh;

so tell me

dream-ribbon that scented time,

tell me,

is it all a lie

when you come to me

again and again

through nighttime and daybreak

and dew-laden fields?