Adventures & Excitement [rev] Poem by Margaret Alice Second

Couldn’t sleep - lying down my head caught fire,
I burned as bed-clothes overheated explosively,
lay down in the bathtub - took a large wet towel
to bed making everything wet, ate muesli rusks,
gained feverish, sluggish double-vision; just up-
ended a cup of tea over work documents, threw
them on the floor to dry - I’m standing amongst
its snow-drifts of white paper in a new act of my
government department’s opera; to inspire

My guru says: “Take your Inner Being with you &
your life will benefit - all goodness will touch your
every cell” - sighing I know in my head the Little
Alien’s reading this with me - & yes he clamours
for fun now; with him as my constant companion
Inner Being the self-assessment won’t get done,
he dislikes self-praise, scrutinising every breath,
every step to press every production advantage
from them: I give in, switch on Bert Kaempfert’s

‘Swingin’ Safari’ & ‘That Happy Feeling’; no-one
need tell me take my Inner Being with me, & the
pest always manages to get his own way when I
do important, life-threatening things - you know
what I mean, aggrandising Assessments - and
translation of the French ‘state of the Universe’
discourse; the Little Alien wants adventures &
excitement, before returning to the dark world
of the letter’s despair…