THE GREEN ROOM
(for Noel Lynch)
This shop is so full of miscellaneous things,
Unassorted and assorted, that,
Its customers can barely enter,
And they must shuffle along,
Its narrow corridors sideways,
Canyoned in by incredible merchandise
Hung from all available walls,
And stacked ceiling-high.
An inventory of its stock would be
An epic in itself, including:
Desiccated dinosaur turds,
And Rubber hot water bottles,
Fashioned to resemble infamous politicians,
Giant butterflies in varnished collectors’ cases
Piles of football programmes,
Unique coins, and fossilised fish.
Texts in every language known on this planet,
Portraits of Macedonian aristocrats,
Necklaces fashioned from polished bones,
Texts in languages not known on this planet,
And several pairs of boots…,
And in one corner,
The shop’s owner presides,
Like a benign dragon in a second-hand suit.
A druid of the discarded,
A trading spider spinning a web of contacts,
Linking, deals, politics, culture and commerce
With invisible threads
Cemented by endless anecdotes,
Joining everyone together with shared humanity
Working to make all our worlds better.
