Welcome to Chronicles...

These are the stories,
the oddities
that secret societies
use as initiation
at Christmas time
over cognac.

It was never more
scary than the night
Jack Platt
told us how he had
come to be killed
in 1973, by a
political philosophy major
behind an oak tree
on the campus of Olympia.

"But Jack, you're alive"
we said, and we were not correct
in that assumption.

So I changed the subject:

"I could swear she wasn't wearing
anything underneath."

(This raised a few furrows and chased out a few mumbles)

"We met so many people
gliding from room to room
stepping like bride and groom.
Vroom.
Injected into the city
in a fast yellow convertible.
Her eyes were like seaspray
flecks of sapphire,
seemed to make me sweat.

When all of a sudden
as if someone had tinted us with
the greased lid of a scone tray,
we were driving in some
terrible alternate cityscape.
A hologram
where buildings looked like they did
behind the stop and go plastic
of 3D specs,
before everyone realised
the effect didn't work.

And she was saying 'groovy'
and climbing up onto the hood
and I was pulling at her dress
for her to come down
and that's when I saw
that she definitely wasn't."