Dreams

 
As the sun slips below the horizon, a swan closes its eyes

At a Chinese restaurant, a Chinese waiter eats his evening meal with a knife and fork

A woman drops her child on the carpet, and instead of crying it laughs

In the car-wrecker’s yard, fragments of window glass sparkle in the sunlight

A strip of red balloon hangs from the beak of a seagull

 
*

 
After a fight at school, acorns are found on the toilet floor

At the edge of a storm, someone is heard sweeping leaves

In the back garden, rain drips from the eaves of a doll’s house

The sunset glows pink inside the ears of a black dog

In a takeaway bar, a machine for killing flies is switched on

 
*

 
A man holds a bicycle wheel and walks into a cathedral

In the middle of summer, a band-aid has melted on the asphalt

A wooden swan sits in a bakery, its back hollowed out and filled with loaves of bread

A wasp picks up a single grain of rice, disappears, then returns to pick up another grain

The dark clouds are darker through the skylight of a limousine

 
*

 
When its master blows down a cardboard tube, the dog cocks its head to one side

A wire coat-hanger is found lying in the snow, and later on, a slice of white bread

A man sells oranges in front of an empty field that stretches towards the horizon

On the beach at night, as the fire dies down, the sound of the ocean increases

 
*

 
A jogger runs past with "Stop Acid Rain" printed on his tee-shirt

In the crowded men’s room, all three toilet doors change from "occupied" to "vacant" at the same time

At a serious accident, an ambulance arrives before the tow trucks

The letters on a tomato sign are the same red as the tomatoes

When the corn field is harvested, the hedgerows rustle with mice

 
*

 
At the airport, baggage tickets hang from the circular light above the check-in desk

A steel girder casts its shadow across the side of a concrete building

A gust of wind sends the cellophane from a cigarette packet high up into the evening sky

On a late-night bus, an old man smelling of beer manages to complete a crossword puzzle

A cat slips between two candles without singeing its tail

 
*

 
Cleaning under his bed, a writer finds his lost pen covered in dust

In the archeological museum, a series of crystalline pings are heard when the lights are switched on

Two painters in white overalls each stand on a white ladder and paint the same building white

In the Japanese garden, a carp with a human face glides by

On a corrugated iron roof, a seagull opens and closes its beak

 
*

 
A pile of cigarette butts lies at the end of a long pier

In a house by the sea, a man in his night-shirt is changing a light-bulb

In the hair salon, a small girl places two red plastic straws in her hair

An empty cassette box shines like a pool of water on a dark bedspread

The shadow of a cat sits on the shadow of a fence

 
*

 
Outside a tropical hotel, a hotel worker is struck by a large leaf

A young mother drives around the block until her babies are fast asleep

A chandelier of icicles hangs from the underside of a rusted fire-escape

Light shines through a blowfly as it settles on a television screen

Lotuses are opening beneath high-tension wires

 
*

 
An ice-cream van breaks down right beside a waterfall

A dog barks, and snow falls from a tree

 
 
[SPORT 11 (November 1993)]