Sunday, November 27, 2016

Mark Roberts #31 Cracks in the ceiling circa 1983


for Anna

Even the real estate agent had to agree
that these cockroaches were taking over the house
and organised a fumigation.
But in the days before mobile phones
there was no way to contact me
travelling back from Melbourne by bus.
So I arrived to a van and men in spacesuits
with packs of deadly chemicals on their backs.

Sent away I called Anna
from the phone booth
on Erskineville road.

Her spare room was piled with boxes of papers
but after a fourteen hour bus trip
I slept a dream filled sleep
of giant cockroaches and vengeful rats.


I woke at first light and stumbled
down the stairs to make coffee.
Just as the kettle started to whistle
there was a crash upstairs.

Coffee in hand I climbed back up
to the spare room to find a large
piece of plaster had fallen
from the ceiling onto the pillow
and a large cockroach
was staring back at me
from the rubble.


5 comments:

  1. Best political allegory on Trump's smashing the proverbial ceiling, yet, I believe. :)

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    Replies
    1. if Efi tells the truth then I enthusthiastically applaud !

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  2. Good allegory, but also - true story! In the sequel, TTO was visiting when a chunk of ceiling came down in the kitchen shortly after we'd made a cup of tea. Literary near misses!

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