Racing, Chasing.

 

I wrote this poem on Sunday as I was travelling from London to Kent on the train. It was one of those wonderful moments where the whole thing decided to come out at once. I don’t like over-introducing poems, it tends to be the small leap between over-introducing and over-anaylising something that can bother me and takes some of the purpose out of the whole thing.

So I will just say that the poem is really written to London, a friend of mine once said that ‘the great idol of London is success’. This poem is an observation of that idol, and the pursuit of it.

Anyway, here it is:

 

 

Traffic lights signal deep breaths and shallow days,
Watchmen trace the steps to the station,

Their eyes bursting with the sights of the forecourt.

 

With signs and symbols, ‘we are here’, ‘we are here’

A million people crossing another’s path, 

Before turning heel and running from their sight.

 

The silence is a normative thing, hauntingly so..

Two dozen different humans, with a thousand different stories,

All shut off, quiet.

 

What barriers should be broken down to ease just one eye open?

We walk down stretched out paths, roads with five endings,

Stories pending sharing.

 

The deep stares, the city’s glares,

We’re consumed with this hypothetical joy,

This theoretical joy, possible love.

 

A decade goes by,

You exchange tears for sore eyes,

Claret for red wine,

Wonder for nice sights.

 

And before you know it you’re abandoned to truth,

A life of your living, the promise pursued,

Was all but a flicker of this earthen white lie,

That the truth is the world that you’ve watched go on by.