You Were The Living Image Of The

I Drew The Curtains To Conceal The Sight Of My Father's Farewell; My Spite Was Sharp As Broken Glass.

What A Joy It Is To Dance And Sing!

Iconic Clothing Has Been Secularized. . . . A Guardsman In A Dress Uniform Is Ostensibly An Icon Of Aggression; His Coat Is Red As The Blood He Hopes To Shed. Seen On A Coat-hanger, With No Man Inside It, The Uniform Loses All Its Blustering Significance And, To The Innocent Eye Seduced By Decorative Colour And Tactile Braid, It Is As Abstract In Symbolic Information As A Parasol To An Eskimo. It Becomes Simply Magnificent.

The End Of All Stories, Even If The Writer Forebears To Mention It, Is Death, Which Is Where Time Stops Short. Sheherezade Knew This, Which Is Why She Kept On Spinning Another Story Out Of The Bowels Of The Last One, Never Coming To A Point Where She Could Say: "this Is The End." Because It Would Have Been.

Why Do You Do Up Your Hair In Those Tortured Plaits, Now, Melanie? Why? Because, She Said. You Know That's No Answer. You're Spoiling Your Pretty Looks, Pet. Come Here. She Did Not Move. He Ground Out His Cigarette On The Window-ledge And Laughed. Come Here, He Said Again, Softly. So She Went.