Poem – Bill Manhire

A return

after Milosz

Stuff I believed in, gone;
rules and other things – the stuff of song.
I woke up feeling funny with no clothes on.

Professors paraded in Greek,
dreaming of oak and pine; the Leith
wandered its way through Presbyterian stone

and the memory-sky settled above my old bookcases.
So nothing was mine? Over again I could hear my father crying –
something to do with home? A cloud replaced a flower,

a groan replaced the waist-high grass,
some bastard stole my best guitar. Then at last
I woke – as is usual in such places.

Bill Manhire

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