Last night in my dream <br />I saw Philip Larkin. <br />He was talking to the teller <br />at the bank—heads bent <br />both whispering of money. <br />I asked him how he went about <br />the business of writing a poem. <br />“I always use a songbook', <br />he explained, “the words are almost <br />poetry already. It makes it so much <br />easier that way to write in verse”. <br />Two sparrows by his bed <br />began to peck at crumbs <br />from the fragments of two cakes <br />on a plate, on his bedside table. <br />When they made as if to eat <br />the untouched chocolate cake, <br />I shooed them both away— <br />their flight was slow. I told him <br />Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate, <br />had asked me to attend his reading <br />of a Larkin poem. He made a moue <br />but did not say I should not go. <br />Beside the bed and next <br />to the untouched chocolate cake <br />there was a very rotten apple. <br />Light as gossamer it was, <br />though when I picked it up to give to him, <br />he shrank away. His face <br />was slightly swollen. It seemed <br />to glisten. I thought he looked sickly <br />as he did the last time I saw him, <br />that time he smiled at me.<br /><br />Pete Crowther<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dream-encounter/
