THE CATHODE THAT RECONCILES

                               RABBIT AND  CAT

                               COW AND SHEEP

                   Beneath the great soft underbelly of the sky

                   a city sits crowned in light -

                   Lucifer, Lightbearer, Prince of Darkness.

                   A soft wind glows

                   indigo-wet,

                   a stillness of gables facing each other across the

                                                             jiggers.

                      The world revolves

                   night-soft, flower-soft;

                   the wind dissolves

                   about the face in the yard,

                   night-balsam-soft,

                   orchis-soft

                   and the aerials cling

                   to the dreams that come in the wind,

                   claw at the soft illuminated sky.

                      All over the city feelers

                   waving among smokestacks

                   wait to spike the passing visions

                   for the empty women in the empty parlours.

                   Mrs Neanderthal sits before her television set

                   waiting for Mr Neanderthal

                   who appears during the news summary

                   before the Quix and the Lux and the Fux,

                   sandwiches soaking ale in Neanderthal's gut.

                   'Where's y' bin, Neanderthal?'

                   'Swillin' ale,

                   swillin' ale an' pourin' it down a cracked ceramic

                                                                 wall

                   as I stared at the love poems

                   of other lonely men -

                   mostly about the act of generation.

                   An' you, love?   'Ow were the dreams tonight, love?'

                   'Time passed, Neanderthal.'

                   'Any complaints, love?'

                   'No, Neanderthal.

                   Time passed.'

                   Mr and Mrs Neanderthal's captive bird

                   blinks in the throbbing light

                   which holds Mr Neanderthal and Mrs Neanderthal

                   in compassionate vacancy.

                   Buy this, buy that:

                   the quiet melancholia of cattle,

                   the phlegm of sheep.

                   Light shifting endlessly casts shadows on the mind:

                   the voice of the lecherous rabbit

                   inviting Mr and Mrs Neanderthal

                   to share the Wonders of Science

                   (abracadabra):

                   the cruelty of the cat

                   inviting them to an orgy

                   of dreams.

                   In the yard

                   beneath the praying antennas

                   the face moistens in a wind that is scentless,

                   polluted

                   and soft as a dove's breast

                   while the spines that reach for the sky,

                   silent as the one throbbing star,

                   wait for the visions of another day.