Poster & The Leaf... Poem by GRANT FRASER

I bought a poster
of Shelley,
at Keats's old house
in Rome,

and brought it home,
wrinkle free!

then i thought,
what about the greenest
leaf I plucked from his grave,
at the protestant cemetery
near Pyramid,

which I pressed
between the pages of a book,
carefuly,

I should have taken
one from Percy's too,
but death was wounding
me so beautifully,

and I was overcome,
when I envisaged Gregory Corso's
headstone with poem,

whom I did glimpse
and hear in real life,
at a reading in Vancouver
in 89, with Allen Ginsberg,

poetry is life and death,
and so much memory - Helen!



II



Graeme's going to frame
it for me,

'I think if you put the leaf
in cling film,
shouldn't stain or anything...',

I put it in my notebook
carried it through work,

delivered packages & letters,

the leafy green sheen
of veins, imaginary bleeding
in my red pocket,

there'll have to be some
kind of praise, more Endymion,

I want to eat poetry again,
somehow?

at first I thought I'd lost it!

the leaf the leaf,

Graeme, took it, as if it was
a butterfly, resounding
on the end of his fingers,

'I'll put it in the safe! ',
and he locked it too,

I almost chuckled....

frame should be ready to tomorrow!