TO KISS YOUR MEMORY

Another poem about those moments of satori that occur unexpectedly.
That's all I am going to say about it.

That we should decide to cross the border

is hardly surprising,

we live in the debatable lands.

Twelve hour passes are all that’s on offer,

because our lives are lived

inside the movements of our favourite clocks.

Still we hope for something built to last

and tell one another we go for experience.

Days lived like this prompt memories,

because in this place words reveal their power,

conjure simulacrum who people the spaces

between the shafts of light

between the notes from the turntable

between the breaths that form the words.

We were there now we are here.

In the quiet of our return a song plays

that was written after you died,

yet I know you are in the room,

have followed us back across the lines,

wearing a sad smile for what might have been,

gently I move to kiss your memory.

An old song that sort of fits the post.Carl Sagan by Loch Lomond.

Until next time.

FURTHER AWAY THAN GEOGRAPHY

On the way back from Australia we stopped over in Abu Dhabi for a couple of days to catch up with some friends. We stayed on the New York University campus and early one morning I watched a group of men drag an electrical cable across an overpass. It was back breaking work even in the cooler hours of the dawn [jet lag had me awake at strange hours].
I wrote this:

Abu Dhabi 2018

Over this bridge anchored in dream,

before the real heat of the day builds,

in a snaking, straining line,

seven men haul a cable,

every step an individual battle with friction.

Reluctantly it unwinds from a large wooden spool,

as opportunistic gravity amps up their burden.

Three stories up and further away than geography,

I watch their struggle,

more than distance separates us.

This was the view from the lounge window and it was across this long overpass the men were unspooling the cable. The vista looked like something out of a J G Ballard novel.
On my first morning I awoke even earlier, in the half dawn, and watched a bus drive along the overpass. It was so dreamlike. I was reminded of the final scenes of Ghost World. You can watch it here.
I've been listening to Loch Lomond's latest lp recently, Pens From Spain. Here's the title song.

And here is Your Eyes.

Until next time.