moonlight echoes through nighttime streets
reverberating off walls of limburger cheese
and the yellow plaster of peeling bandages
over Poseidon blue.
razor wounds
or Time's shaving nicks?
black cats scuttle
through dead-end alleys
like fading dreams they dissolve into cognac fumes
rain dogs howl and the light peels away
as the evening train mourns its passing with a brassy wail
and a clack of ivory teeth on day-old bread.
the ghost of Durrell wafts through on a telltale scent of wine
possessing those he touches
pulling them into his
hedonist
booze-soaked
aphrodisiac
world
with the magic of the grape and the lure of lost inhibitions.
for a while you inhabit the novel
until the reel world intrudes
and pulls you to earth with Icarian finality
plummeting into the day-to-day
with fluttering stomach and limbs of lead
to crashland in mundanity
not with a thud
but with a whimper of remorse.
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