Sitting with the thornbush tales

close, on whispering terms

looking like January for the year to come

looking like January for the year just gone

filings of filigree fern

that you glean from the gusty gales

The lovers, they stand proxy for the trick-cyclist

who is on good terms with the town's psychiatrist

and mingle freely with the newspaper people

on ghost trains that go to magic steeples

and try and calmly greet you

And the kiss-in-the-ring gamblers who coo

would forget what they meant to do

and help the courteous knights reguild their swords

and re-tinsel their tasselled coats' cords

to unite their trials to astonish you

Yes, even the mediocre clown would be crying

with top-heavy humour - and would be madly trying

to treat their guests to tight grimaces

and to the charms of their tragic smallnesses

Would they ever move you?

And the car fleets of the Motoring Academies

would wheel more softly as if with royalties

and the Artistic Home Stores would have to make

not even the absolutely logical mistake

straining to rightly place you

The mail order houses that deal in commercial kisses

hand out carpet roses, resuscitate stalenesses

would have to excel the postman's single trial

of writing his first letter of holy style

that is addressed to you

And the insurance broker would gladly sport

re-statements of a more convincing sort

would grow more human in his basement mind

make a turnabout and choose to be kind

if only he could insure you

The fashion masters who turn on the theatrical sun

and move about with tasteful smiles of fun

would ask you to write with cuneate columbines

and weave cloudy smiles into your flossy lines

only to find they can't even see you

And the cordial columnists would vainly try

to recover their ephemeral facts and plainly pry

into whether there are marketable emotions

yes, on this they would spend remarkable devotions

and find they can't even describe you

The station lady with her feet in a plastic bag

would shrug off her untimely fatal sag

Instead put on a more soulful masquerade

to be equipped for the pious night parade

when she would meet you

And I would drift away from the noise

to touch the rays of your gentle poise

even the gypsies would stop to wander

wave hot colours and compete to squander

their red dances to celebrate you

Those people who know more topical distractions

with which they have won a good many affections

still take care to pay for their memorial inscriptions

consider standing orders for their magazine subscriptions

but do they ever get close to you?

The lovers they fall in step with your mediaeval slowness

wishing much to interpret your contemporary fluidness

striving to unhaze your oriental hidden wishes

and unglaze themselves in convex letter messages

will any one of them ever win you?

The rude maze of naked washhouse pipes

would oblige with more chatty colour types

and the curved windows would bend to bow

to present their talking mirrors now

to keep a fleeting glimpse of you

And the icy needles would flash up and blush

the rainfalls also moderate their glassy gush

and the quaking grass would refine its shaking

the trembling poplar turn to you its silvering

just to try and dazzle you

Foreign countries would bloom in orange wonders

lock away the mooing mountains' ugly thunders

and full of frozen shame would the novembering air

ask good animals to rise from their favourite lair

and offer to warmly accommodate you

And the green tractors would keenly plough the land

for you - to safely run your alabaster, testing hand

along the lines of their rippling furrows' ridges

so anxious to hold out their deep brown riches

and they would jump the interminable queue

just to pell-mell fondle you

And the furry foxes and the big big bear

would invite you – discreetly! - to their Aztec fair

in their Rainbow Wood where a special spectrum

is laid on to prove a really fantastic spectaculum

if only you allowed them to breathe to you

And you? Would you even give a sign

to the wondrous scenes of living sighs

would you even try to accept this loving rhyme

or would you turn away your icon eyes?