Saturday 20 January 2018

Upturned Room


You walk into an upturned room:
an armchair on the ceiling, plants
at forty-five degrees to horizontal,
the pictures from the wall piled-up
into a Jenga tower, leaning
towards the light of an open window,
in which the fireplace is stuck.

The dining-table stands upright,
its surface pressed against a wall,
whose nakedness has been revealed
by stripped wallpaper, hanging from
a standard lamp (no longer standard).
The dust has coalesced to form
the words I Am No Longer Dust.

You set about the task of putting things
back in their place, with one exception:
the books, suspended in mid-air,
their covers open, pages half-turned,
words lined up to jump off the page.