HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE DOUBLE BED
Much have I grovelled in the depths of life, through many Euro-lands and kingdoms hitched; bad “luck”, when I have been quite sudden ditched, as baths were very rare, so I smelled rife. Oft on one wide expanse had I been sold that deep-browed Hypnos ruled as his demesne: yet never did I breathe its pure serene till I was homeward come, feeling so old : Then felt I like some watcher of the skies when a planet swims right out of his ken; or like Rip Van Winkle who with tired eyes sees nothing at all for forty years when to all intent and purposes he dies; snoring, upon a double bed, at home ....
Alan McAlpine Douglas
PS I had the Keats poem thrust upon me at school - put me off poetry for (almost) life !
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