Against the door.
Today I received THe Idle Demon by R.P.Lister Andre Deutsch 1958. It is stuffed full of treasures originally published in Punch, The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker. Once again there is no biographical information. I have never met a more secretive or self-effacing writer!
Here’s one that seems apt:
How Not To Deal With Closed Doors.
I dashed my head against a door,
And one of us was hurt the more.
Either the door, that is, or I.
I know that men and doors must die,
And none of us can live forever.
That is the worst of being clever.
I take all knowledge for my realm,
And grasp, if anything, the helm,
And sail my ship of phantom spars
Into a glowing mist of stars.
Crashing at last to parent earth,
I wonder what the trip was worth.
The truth is, I was never born.
I am a kind of unicorn,
Bred for the never-never land
Where no one tries to understand.
I cannot cope with solid matter,
Or else I should have grown much fatter.
Around the corner, as I stare,
Lies the non-nascent everywhere.
I think about the days gone by,
The time to live, the time to die.
I dash my head against the door,
And one of us is hurt the more.
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