The Mammal Blues
 
 
sometimes you go out of your mind
and it never lets you back in again,
 
pictures of the dead in living rooms
red roses crumbling into mantelpieces
 
clothes hanging themselves on door knobs
hats beheaded falling into witless baskets
 
books red in truth and cause drink the dripping tap
wall papers are old news to spider traps and moths
 
sometimes you go out of your mind
and it never lets you back in again,
 
so you find a tin can or a sea shell and climb in
the king of aluminium the master of barnacles
 
then roll into a comma dreaming of a full stop
or maybe just the touch of something mammal
 
throwing you a pound coin from an empty pocket.