I had shot a couple of pheasants,
Was returning, deep from the wood,
Avoiding the crackle of branches, making
As little noise as I could,
...
I was wandering through the Nursing Home
In the town of Morton Rise,
Seeking an old and weathered face
That I'd known in another guise,
...
The mood in the town of Warramine
Was grim, and getting worse,
For stuck on the town's old hump-back bridge
Was Al Cobdogla's hearse,
...
You woke me, crying out in your sleep
That a part of you had died,
I could hear the birds by the window seat
As they woke and chattered outside,
...
The History Reconstruction Arm
Of the Ministry of Offence,
Had called me in for a meeting
With the Chiefs of Recompense,
...
She'd bought the old McWilliams place
In the Valley of Compère,
After McWilliams hanged himself
In an orgy of despair,
...
He'd worked at the pit since he was ten,
Was quite at home in the dark,
Worked by the light of a miner's lamp
Avoided the slightest spark,
...
The winter fogs roll in from the Thames
While frost forms up on the eaves,
The damp will settle in aching bones,
While the trees are bereft of leaves;
...
Marcus Julius rose at dawn,
Splashed water on his face,
He'd spent the night at the Lupanare
With a pretty girl from Thrace,
...
I was twenty-three when I saw her first,
Without a word of a lie,
She had wandered into the woods by me
With a basket, held on high,
...