Issue 30: Alan Weadick

At the Hub

The hour allows you

the full measure

of your ignorance

a gift given freely

and indifferently

as any other

natural disaster.

Only luck has you

standing square

this time, for a change,

hands chancing

to unfurl in readiness

risking a prolonged

leave-taking

with the notion

that this patch

of the city’s grid

has been visited

by more than one

mind’s delight

at imagining itself

in this darkened office

with other figures

in silhouette

against the exterior

non-critical

lighting, in an episode

that may never

be repeated, a location

left to rot

by the end-credit

noise of numbers

as bodies rush

obediently toward

other bodies

with a sighing

it takes an age

to recognise

as their own

the many-legged

caress of a fake

lawn growing

the softest

of sodium

wings.

Exercise

This is just to prevent me falling

into The Error of the Thirty Two Views

of one screen too many,

each with its own dog to be walked

around the sloughs of inertia

without once wetting my nose, a killer

if you’ve got X amount of work

to hand over to a heavenly

watcher in the woods

where it’s all go still despite

recent poor attendances,

the definite article

for a first person singular

to get lost in, a thief

hungering to be caught

since the law first stood up

on its hind legs.

This is just not bothering

your heavy duty self

with emissions, roundelays

and bottled tries for an acceptable

slice of grandeur, all under

the one tin roof.             

Outside, it seems

there is a village, after all;

beginning just now to stir

in this last first light

recalling the neat trick

of inducing terror at the look

of teeth, a quickening of the breath

with the noise of too much hair

(All this before the livestock

developed their actors’

voices and all the daytime

shows began to revolve

around the fridge)

That sweat you wake in,

after dreaming you’ve lost your phone,

is in your blood and your grandmother

now wants the tears she shed for you back.

Back to School

1. Three Rock

A stranger’s hands reaching

under a low full moon

for an opening

in her thrown shadows

the promised interior

no closer now

than when we started out

that first September.

Still no way of knowing

if that round face always

was so mournful or if

our weathering made it so.

Survival alone is certain

stalemate, a clearing of the throat

in a family room

between first and last words

stepping outside for a time

to drink in the particular,

dark matter and all.

In the sway of the small hours

that clinking over at the bottle bank

a meagre sign of life

not yet past caring

but not quite what we had in mind

when we lit out that first evening

for the high ground

eyes raised to what lay beyond

those masts up at Three Rock

besides armfuls of heather,

craters of cooling shade.

2. Day One

The end of summer strikes

         an unfair blow

                             on a distant bell

that no one is alarmed by

         or monitors-

                             signalling not intruders

only a return

        to the fray

                             that might be schooling.

We are at peace now

         with the landscapes

                              that wouldn’t stay still

or be fingerprinted

        but are now at least

                             on file under “Ether”.

Likewise with the beasts

         of the field

                              left to compete

for airtime

         with the wind turbines

                              as we exchange

their unnerving stares

        for the somehow

                             more manageable march

of the head lice.

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