Monday, May 29, 2006

Transitory Glory

Starting with the premise of freedom

emerging into the grapey light of 7am

to a street of doggerel, grinning ribaldly

past old lamp posts with fresh cables trailing

and a shattered life from last night

lying as windscreen glass across

the camber of the road.

Twinkling, reflecting and so do I,

on Europe’s libertine and laissez-faire

approach to its pioneering offspring.

Here, there are no tumbleweeds to blow

and wedge in wooden doorways

nor one Plexiglas bubble home from which to appear

silver-suited, smirking, overflowing with technology.

Doesn’t seem likely those skateboarders

will explode into strains of Ohhhh-klahoma

at my approach

nor wield capes, astutely contemplating Yorick’s skull

unless he supersedes Def Jam as a House label.

Am I Crusader, invader, or refugee, if I take my life elsewhere?

The liberty I escape to is far more euphoric

than spaghetti western, sci-fi, musical or melodrama

- dances its slamdance, high on the smell of paint

from my fingertips -

as I execute a Dadaist statement

or is it a Surrealist 21st century one-off

smashing a Smartie to smithereens

and scorching down an English High Street,

suitcase in tow, two kids, and a one-way ticket,

unrepentant.


October 2001 Leaving England...

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