The end of the world as we know it

is not

when the first sniper fires their first bullet,

or when the first missile launches

from a clearing in the woods,

or even when tar is added to a first fragile Molotov

and its wick sealed tight,

but

in the scramble to escape a shelled-out ruin,

keeping low across twisted girders

with just what can be clutched.

 

Life is more than endless. 

Always on the way to somewhere else.

For 30 seconds before and after

                                                    blood flow stops,

gamma pulses heighten. As sentience clouds,

the rhythms of alpha, beta,

                                            delta, theta harmonise

in our last analepsis.

                                 Until then, we cannot guess its sum.

 

iii. 2020

MEET YOU AT WATERLOO (1985)

 

Turns out there’s another clock –

not the one I wait beneath.

Pacing the tangled crowds, time melts across its face.

 

Beyond the point of waiting

there’s choice of destinations.

 

Headlong then to the riverbank.

Below the span of trains and traffic, upturned spines

of books in line, laid out.           

 

I buy a paperback keepsake,

cross the ebb surge further up.

 

A crow flaps the other way, perches

black on some abandoned fence: carrion guard

to plot of temporary wasteland.

 

From bridge to an exhibition

of old friends: a snail, a tree, three dancers.

I rest with coffee on polished wood,

see only memories.

 

Other eyes mirror their secret grief.

A child leaving breaks my reverie, and I too

make for the exit, spill

directionless onto the pavement.

 

Rescue arrives as a Routemaster,

red and numbered thirty-seven.

 

 ii. 2022 (1987)

CRAFT OF THE CLINCH

 

On the anniversary of that day

when slave-named Clay dethroned dread Liston,

this new poem begins.

It is face down in a moment

of raw morning; paws at the gap

between curtains;

rises from the crumple

of trousers and jumper, looking

like a man asked to ransack a dustbin.

 

My belt curls through your sandals –

the once-new pair

bought for that trip we never made.

Outside, the din of re-laying tarmac:

blow-by-blow, repeated assertions

shake our glass door.

Above a shelf of children’s stories,

Japan hangs in canvas make-believe

of bridge beneath blossom.

 

Unsure which side to favour, this poem

backs into a neutral corner;

finds its towel and takes a knee.

There’s the faint whiff of liniment

standing by. My cool blue watch

counts down to seven –

TKO in one round fewer

than Ali had foretold. Saved,

not by a bell but a buzzer.

 

 

 

ii. 2020