Dissociative Love

Such hair, such springy marmalade hair,

such arctic skin, such North Sea eyes,

breasts to slaughter Vikings for,

such breasts, such fertile vulpine thighs

I’ve craved for months, all now crouch down

by frying pan and library card.

Two snowy trails. A Guernsey banknote.

Zonk! The material world is barred.

Zonk! We’re skating, disembodied,

along the pipes of the akashic field,

universe-hopping, astrally-jumping,

where only consciousness is real.

No more do men with ties and collars

wring us dry of cash and pride,

no more do cameras and computers

rob us of our right to hide,

no more does anthrax, napalm, fission,

hurl humanity to its knees,

no more do I fancy this beautiful woman

lying naked in front of me.

Sex has now an equal meaning

to fridge-magnets or paper-clips

or money, hair-nets, poetry,

Communism or apple-pips.

And so, instead, we fall asleep,

and later on, in another place,

a white-nosed hippy in a poncho

punches me across the face,

then hides beneath a bar-room table

when my friends descend from above

demanding he apologise for his

jealousy of dissociative love.

© Alfie Shoyger