Hello everyone,
               Many thanks for your useful responses. This is a combined reply since you all raised similar points. Those points I´ve summarised as:
1. not poetry, lack of rhythm
2. what are you trying to say/what is this `poem´ about
There were other comments which focused on specific words or phrases or whole stanzas which I will think over at leisure. I´d like here to pick up these two main reactions. Of course, in offering my own view of this odd piece I´m going to be trying, at least to some extent, to defend the words and lineation I had chosen. I hope that won´t come across too much as if I think the final product is good, I´m sure it isn´t. But half the fun of writing `poetry´ is arguing about it, so here goes.

1. It´s certainly interesting, and eye opening, to see a poem written out as prose. The opening of Eliot´s Four Quartets look especially fine in that form. I imagine that the prime effect is to highlight rhythm or the lack of it. There may be something wrong with my ear (like deafness, for instance ;-) but in the opening stanza I hear quite a strong rhythm. It goes something like this; dee, dum, dee, dum, dee, dum, dee, dum / dee, dum, dee, dum dee, dum, dee / There´s a little irregularity e.g.some lines have an extra syllable and the last three words of S1 break that `rhythm´ completely. S2 returns to the original `rhythm´ for the first 2 lines after which the  lines run together in much longer cadences. Rhythm isn´t only metrical, of course, as Eliot (again) also pointed out it concerns sounds, words, imagery and the change from one image to the next. Try reading the last three words of S1 with an energetic forward thrust of the pelvis for each stress (I´m not sure I should be writing this, but never mind) and see what it suggests. Rhythm at the very least, I hope.

2. The first point I shall make here concerns both content and rhythm, since rhythm, as we have seen, includes sequences of images. Here is a selection of words and phrases from the piece; thrusting columns, towers and turrets, fountains spouting spray, entered, mounted, penetrated, the inner sanctum, stimulating, withdrew, limp with exhaustion. Does this combination of words suggest any particular subject? Would it have suggested one to Freud, for example?
One thing I was trying to do here was to weave various words and phrases into the fabric of the `poem´ so that they might actually function as a kind of `hidden figure´ for the reader to identify as they read. The `poem´ then enacts its own subject. What is the subject? What is the `winter palace´? Clearly not the one in St. Petersburg since that would have capital letters, doesn´t have a garden and there are no fountains. My winter palace exists only in the text you read, the `hidden figure´ in the palace is the `hidden figure´ in the text. Pretty cunning, I think you will admit. As a final bonus the narrator, who is not me, just a narrator, is accompanied by...who? Someone is there, mentioned at the beginning, `we´ and `two´, and at the end `my companion´. As readers we know nothing of this shadowy figures opinions about the whole experience. (S)he is also a `hidden figure´. The style of the piece is intended to imitate as close as my poor powers allow the tone of a speaking voice since it is supposed to be a person speaking. It´s not `poetic´ in the sense of being high-flown. I don´t think that would be appropriate. And there are some jokes - `heating bill´(?)
I think that to try to use language in this way is one of the elements that makes the difference between prose and poetry. Whether it succeeds is quite another matter, of course. 

That concludes the case for the defence. Does it make any sense? Even a little bit of sense would be reassuring. But please, don´t flatter me, if I´m deceiving myself entirely as to the possible reading of this piece then let me have it between the eyes, as a way of opening them, I mean ;-)




Best wishes,   Mike