My Poetry: Meditations from a bus window

I

So many things crowd me

Ideas, people, hang-ups

Until I'm too numb to see what

The movement between heaven

And the sea means.

Merchants peddle lies

Gift-wrapped as truth;

Our neighbours’ scared

To point out the fabric of our reality

Is woven from the same falsity

As the emperor’s new clothes.

Birds drift silent as shadows

Between the faint stars

And milky afternoon moon,

They know gravity is arbitrary

And landing dangerous

Once you've learnt how to fly.

The fishes swim

Elegant as a final farewell

Carving their way

Through the steel cold river,

Still as an old photograph,

The big picture

Framed in the space above them.

II

I'm st dscnnctd

Th wrld rlls pst lk

A strght to TV movie

Behnd th drty wndw.

Th yrs dispr

Lk snw

On yr tngue.

Lng ag i stppd

Cntng th mnths

each dy a lng sries of nghts

III

I watch three kids dancing

In a tatty park,

And feel sad.

I think of the kid

In the picture frame

Above my mums mantlepiece

Who had no idea he would

Turn grey and so tired,

That one day the crazyiness

Would subside like chalk cliffs

Eroding a year at a time,

Leaving nothing but a shipwreck

And an unfulfilled daydream.

The view from the bus window across the River Adur, heading into Shoreham across the A259, one cold December day 2015.