A Different Bloom Poem by Andrew Lee

I squish the flesh, rind and pulps of an orange, tasting the juice, talking quietly to Bloom, who specializes in probing the psyche. He whispers a few jokes to himself, to drive away a rising lake of gloominess. Someone is kissing his wife in the evening light behind a veil of pink curtains. He turns his head away and says, 'Well, I should be happy for her.'

Maybe he's old beyond his biological age and struggles to be a sort of big-hearted follower of the Buddha. In the meantime, the flavour of his wife's perfume lingers on the tip of his nose.

That night he stays inside a dreamscape, not wanting to wake up too soon, mumbling stories that help him recall the difficult lives of John Keats, Edgar Allan Poe, D. H. Lawrence, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Wilfred Owen.

I guess when we die, we are not really bothered with the question of whether our life has been a long dream. Instead we ask, Did we have the guts to walk along some of the paths lit up by our heart's desire, so that death brings fewer regrets?