I saw him in the Airstrip Gardens
   (Fahrenheit at 451)
Feeding automative orchids
   With a little plastic bun,
While above his brickwork cranium
    Burned the trapped and troubled sun.
 
'Where is Piper? Where is Pontefract?
   (Devil take my boiling pate!)
Where is Pam? and where's Myfanwy?
   Don't remind me of the date!
Can it be that I am really 
   Knocking on for 78?
 
'In my splendid State Apartment
   Underneath a secret lock
Finger now forbidden treasures
   (Pray for me St Enodoc!):
T.V. plate and concrete lamp-post
   And a single nylon sock.
 
'Take your ease, pale-haired admirer,
   As I, half the century saner,
Pour a vintage Mazawattee
   Through the Marks and Spencer strainer
In a genuine British Railways
   (Luton made) cardboard container.
 
'Though they say my verse-compulsion
   Lacks an interstellar drive,
Reading Beverley and Daphne
   Keeps <em>my</em> sense of words alive.
Lord, but<em> how</em> much beauty was there
   Back in 1955!'