84. Screen Memories Maybe of Bideford Fair

Not ordinary on the quayside
mongrels move across (we are they
of gryphons & tapirs & people &
all free creatures – not marred
we choose carnival & laughter
night-time suddenly sparks and shines
the dust smells of meadowsweet
we are fierce, miswritten humans
now opening history to the full at midnight

not triumphal – heavy struggle
we are devoured within
a buffet of profound perversity
irrationality of the non-human
always back in the old mud again
something brutish & smearing
home is the horizon – it glitters
somehow we are still wading up the beach
trust, intensified, one of our great truths