My Father's Flat Poem by James Harpur

from The Monk's Dream


Tugging apart the curtains every day

He always saw, three stories up, a grand

Sweep of the Thames, the trees of Battersea



And, squatting there, the Japanese pagoda -

Inflaming, a parody of a bandstand,

Its four sides flaunting a golden Buddha.



It glowed like a lantern near the glitzy braid

Of Albert Bridge at night.

If he had crossed

The river he might have heard Renounce the world



Escape the gilded lips or seen Gautama lying

In mortal sleep, his face relaxed, his flesh released;

Even in death, teaching the art of dying.



At night, across the river two golden eyes burn

Into the heavy velvet of the curtain.