Orphans

A pearl-handled dart

Lands in the eye of the storm.

Beholden to none,

The tide advances across the steppe.

°

Bodies in motion,

Like a magician with theremin hands.

In heaven everything is fine.

°

At the corner of High Street and Island Wall

the world shrunk to a pebble.

Later, at the beach, skimming in the dark –

I thought we were better than this.

°

You will recall Monkey. And the glass.

Tumbling  from the table’s edge.

The Zone – did we ever leave?

°

Trace your finger across the page,

Feel the sharpness of its turn.

(Where were you when the castles were sacked?)

Read what you want to read.

It's all the same to the letters on the page.

°

N1 1DU

Pouring tea from a height.

Foam fading, fleeting in the mug.

The kitchen was narrow and long,

Looking out to the flat concrete roof.

There was a time when all of this was new.

°

Hürlimann, guitars and cigarettes,

a borrowed amp that smelt of patchouli oil.

Running spike grooves across an LP cover

on the floor of the minibus –

This is the modern world!

It was simple then, is all.

 April 2025