I - Trains

I pass the Sunday gardens,

keeping vigil by narrow factory aisle,

summoning auburn sky and smoke-salt;

then trace the river to its end

to wait, empty-handed on pebbled beach.

The blue sky rips, wallpaper,

with trumpets and cymbals, and bodies

bullet-sped 'cross countless arches.

There I am with you,

the outside world a postbox slit, as

we brace the walls

and kiss;

as years pass and countries change,

and some future is realised

while miles below, the flames lick the silt;

 

II - Rooms

And these, are endless...

beyond stone, mirrors and falling curtains

and a dance with reflections reborn.

The clocks are many and all tock out

the same robot rhythm.

In a mint blue overworld the gods

delicately manufacture sneers and eyes

blink blind through sand and cement.

I fashioned, with hot basalt, this palace

of chainmail, summer sun

at speed of sound,

alighting on each silver strand to sit.

I hide in mansions in square plots

and dull rooms, my goldfish now carp,

the square of lawn, now national park;

 

III - Alternate Lives

My Mother sits, hands clasped,

in the kitchen chair,

tall strangers stir the far corner.

I'm told some important story; I'm

not listening, tracing patterns

on the textured wall behind

with my eye; the cream sediment

cracking, crawling through the gap.

Outside I blink in the gloss of sun;

people are playing at track and field,

counting, eyes scrunched, one to twenty.

Over the wall, through the wooded door,

I step inside my neighbours' house.

Dark-eyed children welcome me to their

eminent domain.