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)
This is an old poem, re-worked for a workshop exercise. In some ways I prefer the artless spontaneity of original, written 35 years ago. Readers may judge for themselves:
ReplyDeletehttps://markbcassidy.blogspot.com/2009/08/mirrors.html
P.S. I had 'the hots' for the person in question, so did wait well over an hour. We never met or communicated again. Who knows what - in another timeline - would have happened if we had. Nowadays, with our mobile phones, such mischance would likely never happen.
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