Adam Prosser When I was young I read the first poem below. You may have read it yourself. It was written in the 18th century, and it's a trick poem, based on the fact that punctuation worked differently two hundred years ago. I liked it so much that, rediscovering it some years later, I wrote two others using the same trick. I guess it shows how the difference between fantasy and reality is mostly grammatical in nature. * * * I saw a peacock with a fiery tail, I saw a comet drop down hail, I saw a cloud wrapped with ivy round, I saw an oak tree creep along the ground, I saw a beetle swallow up a whale, I saw the sea brimful of ale, I saw a venice glass full fathom deep, I saw a well full of men's tears that weep, I saw red eyes all of flaming fire, I saw a house bigger than the moon and higher, I saw the sun at twelve o'clock at night, I saw the man who saw this wonderous sight. * * * I saw a dragon eating up the moon, I saw a shadow on a bare field at noon, I saw a rabbit chasing a hound, I saw a young boy rising from the ground, I saw a lily a million years old, I saw a mountain of solid gold, I saw a chalice ten feet wide, I saw a river dance from side to side, I saw a maiden flying through the sky, I saw a raven without using my eye. * * * I saw a tiger on a butterfly's wing, I saw a skull that had learned to sing, I saw a nightingale made of coloured glass, I saw a saint that burned me as I passed, I saw a hearth where devils hissed, I saw a puppet show blow me a kiss, I saw a woman under the sea, I saw a city inside a tree, I saw a coiled serpent hanging from a door, I saw a flower, and never saw I more.