Roger Collis

Those were the days of hope
When despair
Could be put off for another day
When we had time to hope;
There was always tomorrow
Tomorrow was another day.

Those were the days before
We stopped
Mortgaging the future
To plunder the past

Hardly without knowing
That each day living
In the future
We were betraying the past

How could we know
That the only future
Is what we leave behind?                

Those were the days before
There were no more tomorrows;
Before we knew
That it’s easier to rebuild the past
Than to rebuild the future

 Roger Collis August, 2012

Fantasy or reality? That is the question; one question, at least.
‘Which is better?’ Indeed.
They may be the same; best not to judge
This game, as you say, between strangers on a train.

‘Which is better?’ There is no answer but the inevitability
of coincidence. (Serendipity, if you’re lucky!)

Evoking echoes in ourselves
Unsounded in ‘real’ and often unfocused relationships.

As you intimate (no pun intended): When does fantasy become reality? What is reality?
It seems to me
That there are several kinds, and shapes, and layers
Elusive. Perhaps existing all in one, at the same time, or moving from one
To the other:

Virtual reality
Real reality
Fictional reality

Certainly, fiction can present a more ‘truthful’ version of ‘reality’ than a ‘real’ account. Turning reality into words is already an act of translation, of transgression, of betrayal?

Facts rearranged can become fictions: fictions are formations of facts.

A reminder of Schroedinger’s cat: the act of observation changes, or brings into being, that which is being observed.
So the very act of writing down the conversation in my head changes it, makes it a new, a different kind, of conversation      

I once heard David Hockney say something along the lines
that art can be more ‘real’ (truthful?) than photography – revealing more depth/more layers… of reality?    

And games can be addictive.

No harm, necessarily, in that.

I love your thoughts, by the way.

I was dismayed to find myself dismayed the other day
that someone had laid a bowl of crocuses on your grave
in the place where I lay my Sunday flowers
usurping I thought the raw memory of my loss. Click here

Once upon a time, a log – of dense, aromatic wood – lying in the forest, was happily ablaze.

Until one day, some people discovered the log and covered it with sand to extinguish the fire, thinking it unseemly, and possibly dangerous.

Many years later, a man searching for a rare species, came across the mound of sand that concealed the log.

To his astonishment, when he removed the sand to find what was underneath, the fire reignited and fierce flames sprang from the log.

Miraculously, the fire had survived all those years without oxygen as a dormant glow deep within the wood.

I want to marry you. Don’t
bother me with the facts:
that we’ve never met; that you
might have other arrangements.
Click here