The stars are sad the city can’t see them. The pencil trembles with anticipation as it is poised over the paper. Crumbles of mud tumble with giggles as they fall from bashed boots. The sun loves to shine on politicians. Lashes are fame for a snowflake. Lightbulbs unshaded are ashamed. Keys are tragic lovers. Curtains always part reluctantly. Unlit candles sullenly withstand. Beds are favourite uncles, pillows their patient friends. Forks writhe and sigh upon your lips. And all things, when ignored, pray to the space between them; for men do take the cups they lift for granted. So when you are held by distracted hands, follow their example, and then you’ll too know, my love, that life loves you sometimes secretly.

Dear office dweller,

I will make you feel great for at least three weeks, and possibly up to two months. I am charming, witty, masculine with an interesting well-paid job and have complete and total confidence in myself. More importantly I conform largely to your expectations of what a man should be. I am an expert in manipulating the emotions of others without either of us quite understanding what is going on. You will be instantly attracted to me, but have no idea how interested I am in you, which will simultaneously frustrate, alarm and excite you. I will make you kill yourself laughing and surprise you with my gentleness and chivalry. We will soon be in bed, whereupon I will bring you to an intense yet subtly detached orgasm which will leave you pleasantly exhausted and then very slightly sad. At first you won’t notice this sadness, nor my detachment, but over time your post-coital tristesse will combine tragically with my increasing carelessness and deeply upset you, although you’ll hide your pain from yourself and express it indirectly at me. Eventually your irrational unhappiness will give me precisely the justification I need to be rid of you, although I’ll call you up later and we’ll repeat the friendly-romantic-sexual process a few times until my genes have informed me that the job has been done and you can go onto your next superficially entertaining and ultimately disastrous fantasy.

That’s option one. Option two is much the same only over a longer period. We’ll slowly settle into a ghost world of compromise and familiarity for a few years, have a few romantic days out, before my fundamental lack of interest in you, my taking you for granted, my putting my absurd private interests and sexual restlessness before you, my basic fundamental immaturity and fear of love, will make you more and more emotional and more and more addicted to substitutes for love, until, a few ‘us’ talks, and a few surprisingly nice but increasingly rare moments later, we’ll break up in truly hideous circumstances.

Finally, best of all, option three; we get married... Spend a few thou on the wedding, a lavish sumptuous affair, then live in a picture postcard dreamworld for a bit. I’ll take you hither and yon, building a home and all that. Then I’ll get subtly but significantly bored of you and feel a pressing need for independence. I’ll give you a few kids which will distract you from my lack of majesty, before going on to live the parody of the life of a handsome playboy bachelor, thereby creating a pall of psychic dishonesty and doom over our house, driving us apart and thereby raising the children in a cold psychic world of apparent harmony, but actual separation and violence. They’ll then grow up superficially happy, but, like us, dead inside.

She's good for me like my legs are for my torso

She's good for me like vitamin c, only more so

She looks like c minor but she smells just like rainbow

Obsessing me messing me happiness heresy losing my sanity oh no!

She wakes up and makes up a song and sings the solo

I go back to sleep and then she hits me with a yo-yo

She spits at me barks and then she takes off through the window

She keeps a candy bar inside her padded bra think I might take a bite oh yeah!

She's good for me like the queen is for the kingdom

She's good for me like philanthropy and then some

She kisses me, with modesty, then hits me with a dum-dum

Hurting me healing me sweet little injury bleeding me feeding me oh yeah!

She speaks in infra red and travels at the speed of light

She gives me her heart and a thousand pounds of dynamite

Tsunami, volcano and her favourite little meteorite

Right all along, she's a hydrogen bomb... and this is my swan song.

On high heeled mountains

Under skies silked and pearled

Climb soft-necked trees

Around cool brown branches curl.

In soft-limbed valley,

From meadow's heart to dive,

Dive into dancing river;

Whirling, smiling, warm, alive.

There's a garden in the city.

Parsnips have an effete 'pursed' kind of intellectual giggle, but not affected and still charming. Carrots have a toothy sherbety snicker. Radishes have a wheezy muttley gaspy kind of laugh. Beetroots are excellent smirkers. Cauliflower has a high pitched west-kensington middle-management whinney. Aubergines have a sucking parping honk, like a beautiful woman with big feet, and bell peppers, as far as I know, laugh silently, their bodies trembling helplessly. Celery laughs like my auntie, with an infectious gawky naughtiness, new potatoes have a gurgly mirthful bubbly chuckle, like a fat Asian baby, and leeks have sweet bright ringing laughter that tinkles down my spine.

Smile like a pea, my darling.

We got married this weekend, my love and I. We arrived at the mountain hall a week in advance and made preparations, decorating the stage, practicing our swing-outs, hanging hammocks, setting light to dead trees, marinading and marauding.

The guests arrived on Friday afternoon in twos and threes and fours and they sorted themselves and sat down for dips and chatter while some local accordionists with huge moustaches played whimsical waltzes. That evening we didn’t do much, allowing everyone to get to know each other and rehearse if they wanted.

Saturday morning, after a breakfast of blinis, we all went swimming down at the waterfall. We covered ourselves in local clay, baking in the sun until tight and crackly, then dived in the deep rock pool, wherein did lie unspeakable things.

We played some running around games; stick-in-the-mud, ding-dong-zombie, moon-garden and manhunt. The children taught us how to play bomb-boy and crazy-snakes.

Saturday evening was the floor-show. Sam was master of ceremonies, splendid in his top hat and tails. He introduced all the acts that people had prepared, Larry set himself on fire and sang Wagner; Mary, Maya, Kim and some kids on washer-boards played a few thumping rags while hanging from the ceiling; some clumsy sketches, tight-harmony a-capella renditions of post-punk classics and plenty of impro classics (the king game, freeze, word-at-a-time, etc). Tony had a good party trick.

Falton then taught us the first few basic steps of the waltz and we finished the evening in disco.

After a lie in and late breakfast, all seventy of us, and three donkeys, went down to the spring in our midday finery. Old Peter presided over the ceremony. We swore, my bride and I, to walk slowly, rid ourselves daily of the restless tenant and throw ourselves with hopeless perilous passion into the raw and the glorious. I said I would give up my hankering for independence, love her straight even when she was emotional, and she said she would softely shatter my crystal systems into sweet smithereens, learn the bassoon and brew my tea properly; not just bash a bag about in the cup until the water was dark. Then we kissed each other and swapped rings. And then the whole congregation had a custard-pie fight and dived in the spring.

That night we all dressed up as gods and monsters, Falton, in his bunny-suit, gave us our second waltz lesson and, in ripped silk frocks and antlers and floppy dog-ears and frock-coats and hooves, to the rancid sound of the accordion, smokey hammond and liquid flute; we waltzed. We circled the large oak hall all night, moonlit with fireflies; and we are circling it still.