The green bench

All night when red flowers are black
And they of an upper air sit on them,
Green bench  legs turn blue and thin
As they keep sinking in and in.

The man with a skullcap and his wife
The woman who made nostril noises
The poet who wrote his parchi prose-
They all keep sinking in and in.

A social reformer with ghoulish eyes
A gardener who phones to South sky
A plastic rabbit with belly for rubbish
All they keep sinking in and in.

All night reds and greens will be black.
Green bench legs will be blue and thin
Sinking in and in , till all are upper air
And red flowers  gray and thin.

(with echoes from Thomas Hardy’s poem The Garden Seat )