32


– Have you ever seen this stone in the chemist's shops, the beautiful and transparent one, from which they
    Kindle fire?
– Do you mean the burning-glass?


G-clamped parabolas reach out with poise
 into the constant low-range stink of un-sewn sky
  an open seam of fleeting sense
 the hitherto
and unswapped code
raise(s) compatibility issues:
 how can you get a Mortality Pang so early in the day
  with nothing (un)achieved or as yet undone
   hauling as if weightless a laden reminiscence into view
    the unexpected deep-reaching lymph of regret
     sadness pulls to the left
    splits the day's harsh fluviality
   wide open
  twilit rehashed overlays press dawn light
   to walls poured from creased tins of authentic space rubble
    wilting roller blinds leant squeeze box bellows shot and left for dead
     in the midst of this
      I shed the skin of sleep
       and unable to face the tangible discomfort of city travel
        somehow remain within the platform's
         flat fag butt fleck
          of bum-sucked stubble highpoints
           on the un-cultivatable dull-stained asphalt slab
            poured once (only) into this shape it holds
             and from which there is little or no escape
              I'm going to be late for work
               for the rest of my life
                no more able to pump up the tyres of the urban cycle
                 to shake off the dangling offshoots of temperament
                  of irrefutable coarseness
                   yet overwhelmed on the collective stalk to the stairwell
                   by YA suits OTG in clever shoes
                    authenticity seekers with laptop satchels
                     ploughing through and appropriating
                      pre-Autumn which says the stationer's window
                      Is a season of ideas
                       the tram's bagpipe brakes heave a brazen fart across the waking world