I dreamt up a little verse –

and in my mind, a circus-ground

of sound, it neatly rhymed

before this telling (inevitably)

brings it worse.
In fog, a weary one did

climb an old stone

staircase, spiralling, echoing

ocean, up to the lamp.
There, a stamp, as of

ideology, glowed above

its chamber doorway

(apparently, marking

politics, as well as

other systems of love).
Strangely, the lamp then spoke:

I, whom navigators adore,

cannot show safety

to one ashore, but perhaps

you sought a different.
A different, yes, the weary

said. Normally I

seek it left – but try not

to be blind a-starboard

or blind straight ahead.

Permit a weary word,

therefore, and tell me:

whitherwárd?
The lamp responds to

tide and time alone,

so shone to the right

that long, dark, cold,

foggy night, revealing

warships on the waves

and massing troops

and tanks on cliff-tops.
Which made one search

forlornly to the left,

unlit as it was, and

shrouded in the fog,

finding almost nothing

save the great black-blue

and silver surf – which was

hardly a discovery

in and of itself.
And so one searched

a little longer, and a

little longer still.