Psychedelic Werther

Poor Werther, on top of all his other problems, in this 1960s paperback edition of his tragic story, he don't know whether he's in Picasso's blue period or his pink! What's a boy to do? Actually, don't answer that one.

I got this from the Oxfam book shop in Strutton Ground, Victoria, which is one of London's best-kept secrets. The key to its magnificence is the type of people who live nearby and donate their libraries to the shop when they move on or die. So close to Whitehall, they're all ex-civil service, ex-MI5, Chelsea aristocrats or Communists (generally donating militant pamphlets from 1920-1950), or all four put together, and the books they leave behind are fascinating.

Perhaps it has occurred to you
to compliment God
on the mysteries of the set
He designed
for you in particular:

hum drum afternoons
on the gravel and astroturf
of a wintry, luminous suburb

oceans of trivia break across the airwaves

to call this ‘home’;
it's hardly believable.

Who could ever have invented
such an illusion-like illusion?