(car / east)

I enjoy being a passenger in your car,
first climbing through gates
to touch the faces left back where we started – 
interrupted by radio
                 dirty “programme of abuse”,
                 hear “systematic failures”  
                 question why no one
                                 stopped.

But home in the car I’m safe,
you drive I’ll watch
for all potential left by the roadside:
                 goods and services
                 ramshackle market stalls
                 old men asleep on straw
                 dogs scratching patterns 
                 dead masters;

the difference is telling
but we drive on in silence
perfecting beliefs only when we pause.

Radio reports “feral children”
doctors fed them full for asking in sign;
is emotion taught?

Straw beds appeal
but we continue the road,
                 driven mad
by no sleep.

Each day we kiss up quick to the dawn
and he looks at me –
                 licking dew off a cut lip;
“with occasional access” 
to desperations – 
thinking too much about progress
is to miss the truth
that you are driving
and I am watching.

At speed the windows are film reels
stretched out beyond sense – 
bands of colour differing in width.

Heard “everything is together”,
when the celluloid burns
we can stop
and think about what we have done
where we have come –
                 always refusing speech.


Alexis

Spare Me " * "

In this particular kingdom of the blind
the one eyed man is too busy
          shepherding to brace the reins
                of a king,

warding off the accidents of human traffic,
the stumbling patsies of misplaced trust,
another lusty collusion of genocide and fun.

               Yet a mile high above   
      in the flight paths of the blind
a stewardess advises her passengers 
                thus: 

‘At the command: brace! place your head
between your legs and 
           pray - or trust at least

for the plane is losing
            altitude fast         
                   &
we all may be obliged to acknowledge soon the moment 
         in which
even the Beautiful People 
         won’t be leaving
     good-looking corpses 

But in the locker above your head
you will find confirmation that

even the visually challenged
         will have every right
to have seen and not seen the fire at the end of the universe
           which the scriptures say 
will burn seven times hotter 
            than the sun.’

Ade Jackson