What haggis hangs here, blocking air and lamp?
This cellar’s atmosphere is what you grow
accustomed to at peril, and the stamp
of roundhead boots makes our life here below
the stairs not that enlightened save for thunder,
and lightning that casts shadows: Ermintrude,
projection of a haggis! Does she wonder,
albeit sheepishly, how Duncan would
make wing to rooky wood? This haggis nesting
above our heads, and fetid, makes our fast
less difficult than Cromwell’s, always questing
to root his futures from the simple past.
The haggis, falling, stifles our debate
as we divide its awful on our plate.

He remembers two past lives. He is unsure
which of them, if either, had been real.
He was Santa Claus in one; in the other, a human.
His shouts his fear and solitude into the void
or would do, had he voice or volition.

He remembers all about music except its sound.
He thinks of dancing. He almost remembers caring.
He thinks he’d be much better off if he could.
The void yawns him into wisp. He coalesces
again, and again, and again, not knowing why.

They bring him brandy with his breakfast. He says, ‘I am driving.’
‘It’s not optional,’ grins, and pours, the lesser devil.
‘Now you’ve sampled both do you prefer the void or here?’
Grateful he can care, he stands to answer
and wakes, and cares a lot that he was dreaming.