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I look intently At my jacket Draped uniquely 'Cross a chair Joe Cocker creeping sub-audible Underneath the door. Lines arc 'n arch Parabolize Endless contoured convolutions Towered above By rugged range Of ruffled sleeve Careless thrown Draped unnatural Weirdly still Haunting clinks of rusted chain Midnight ticks of watching clock. It sleeps Like a warped brown cat Dragging the chair over not succeeding. It hangs like a cliff-face Claws and gropes With frantic bleeding fingertips. Lying simultaneous limp as a dead leaf Relaxing on the ground. And yet it is true I have to say It's the same one I wear Every day. This jacket tilts my mind Raising dizzy curtains Memories of Salvador Dali. A leaping dolphin over chair Stopped in mid-flight. Chaotic ordered disorder Knocks that knock When no-one's there. But Enough of empty imagery Dismiss the futile metaphor. It's strangely, Beautifully, Significant in its own right. Fountain feathers trailing free. Could call it Grace Or Struggle, Ecstasy or Torment. The time it now does six o'clock be I put on my jacket And go to tea. It nags like the restless ocean Persistent, relentlessly, In its smooth rough-shaped mystery. ---(Peter Elliott)---Return to "The Circus" Index Page - - (written in August 1970)