The bits don’t fit. . .

Mr Whippy in the suburbs

between the psalms of mowers
and clean cars of a Sunday.

The tune is mixing up its message:

6/8 on a high celeste
the kind that wings might stroke in heaven

some    where    my     love

in David Lean’s three hour account
of Pasternak’s Zhivago

and further back the sound of Stalin

talking on the wire
there    will    be    songs    to sing

as children wring a coin from mum

and sprint across the lawns.
The dogs are yelping out of sync.

The icecream man from Hamelin

sagging, pale, without his flute
is trying hard to smile —

the franchise bill is due on Friday.

How come so many streets are bare?
The silver lilt of Maurice Jarre

is hollow in his head.

His dreams are deep and wide as well
with waltzing and with snow,

with icicles like slivered glass

and curlicues in cones.
Street by street all afternoon

he circles off until

the contradictions fuse at last
and jangle in his bones.