Note well the co-ordinates of the rubbish dump. Lit lantern, hand-held, visibility Stygian. Pebbles underfoot. Buck collar snug at the neck. Distant incomprehensible keening. The mighty pyramids of Ancient Egypt. Satyrs cavort in the forest. A galumphing peasant with a pail. The rubbish dump would appear to be not far from the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Crows fly there, on the hour, timetabled. Clack clack clack, rapid clacks. That kind of timetable. Rain on the pebbles. An orphan choir sings a song.

Bob Crow, Bob Crow
Made out of dough
Eat him up with salt and herring

A biff in the chops from an unknown assailant. Fleeing in the gutter. On All Hallows Eve, pictures of Jap girls in synthesis. The seven wonders of another world. Resurrectionists scurry in the night. Spades at the ready. Bob Crow, Bob Crow.

Sibelius was a terrible drunkard. A dog sniffing a ditch. Frisky terrier, lumbering hound. Two dogs then. The Colossus of Rhodes. Young marble giants. Wind in the rigging. A frump with a towel in a doorway, like Harry Lime in postwar Vienna. Wheels within wheels. The windmills of someone else’s mind. Mind how you go, sir. There’s room for one more inside.

There’s room for one more skip at the rubbish dump. Babylon or Chartres. Sing, sing, in a cathedral choir. Nunc dimittis. And he had received an answer from the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. Bob Sparrow, Bob Lark.

Rain in the gutters and filth on the stairs. I hear the sound of mandolins. Now the orphans sing.

Bob Crow, Bob Lark, Bob Bobolink
Call for another round of drinks
We are teetering on the brink
Let’s fall into the abyss.

Visibility nil, in the abyss. Can I get a witness? Is there honey? Is there tea? No. You have drained your cup. You could not make it up.

A new ghost.