1 MAY 1964, Page 24

Conversation Piece

It settles on the lot of us. My wife, Long sad face gazing into the dark, Steelgrave's huge bald skull Seized in a rigid hand, the art student Asleep, head clewed aside, like Charles I After the axe fell. And even Eamonn Set, in his chair.

I watch

These figures from a modern frieze, and say 'The silence of the television age.' Nobody stirs. And I can't penetrate The chill sarcophagus surrounding them, Can only sit, silently, into the night, Watching it fall, like dust, on each of us.

PHILIP HOUSSALP"