A far cry

By day it is easy enough
to  keep up a stream of activity.
Chairs scrape, telephones ring,
people pass on the stairs.
I come home to a five-bedroomed house
in Clapham
with all my nerve-ends jumping.
Everything has collapsed
into sentences of four or five words.
At night things drip
as if the contents of secret clouds
were about to sluice down.
The whole house shakes
when the trains rattle past.
I lie in bed thinking
this is a far cry
from adventures for boys.

				Clapham, 1991

	John Rule, 2004
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