“A ‘truth’ detached and purified of pleasures of ordinary life is not worth a damn in my view. Every grand theory and noble sentiment ought to be first tested in the kitchen—and then in bed, of course.”

Tired of the eighties, and the on-
going crisis in masculinity—the compliment 
each generation pays itself—he stared 

After Africa, Surbiton:
An unheated house, and flag-stoned pavements;
No colobus monkeys, no cheetahs scouring the plains.

murky and aflame. I watched,
blinking, the setting sun
catch and burnish the glass and flanks of the cabs

veined blossoms falling, the face, lightly
tattooed, of a god

to wander
between the winds, and find
no home, to scour