DRIVING SONGS
**
possible
worlds
revolve on the ring-road
between gear changes
and ferocious word-play
unprecedented
steps
by the Bank of England
what time will I get home
to revive the economy
though
he wonders
when he'll see
his family again, yet
the stars are grinning
in a
speculative
but benevolent way,
watching his lonely progress
through the dancing
traffic
**
roadworks on the M5
occasional
sun,
the foreign secretary
being inflammatory
cows
flashing
past, the day brightening,
thoughts straggling
the structure of the
brain
how much petrol's left
and is desperately sorry
and happy
by turns,
in limbo or the Elysian fields
in the green and pleasant
not one
to spoil things,
but, of course,
there is no 'present moment'
**
I knew
it was time
to stir; to set out
in midsomer seson
of high, green corn
to the
slip-road
of the widened M1
in search of tree-dwellers
and traffic-calming measures
when
my country
into which I had just
set foot, was set on
fire about mine ears,
when
memory gave us
the elbow, it was
time to stir. It was
time for every man to stir
**
there's
a ghost
of a narrative,
stalking all the cars,
sudden tail-lights
coming
back
after visiting relatives
starlings in the dusk…
Israel vows
twisting, curling,
moving as one
in the
red sunset…
to continue its offensive,
a huge swarm in the sky
as night
falls
we won't raise
the white flag
**
Tel Aviv
says it 'may'
have used white phosphorus
guardian angels, whirlwinds
the wrath of time
but only,
and again
these men and women
struggled and sacrificed
and worked till
their
hands were raw
so that we might live
a better this
is the new machine
swept
on sheen of early,
clean morning, a bee
banging into the windscreen
trying to enter the
world's reflection.
**
out on
the road
in an effortless
lyrical, narrative impulse
here, and not-here
the stars
climb more easily
than I do, than signals
from the war on terror,
the violence in the
night sky
o open the window, can you see
"these elaborately
constructed forms
so different from each other
and dependent on each
other
in so complex a manner"
read all about it
among a glut of new works
on the
great naturalist
**
the near
explains the far
the drop is a small ocean
the wind is blowing
litter in little circles
and a
woman is walking
down the road
with two small children,
past people waiting
for a bus
I went to the woods
because I wished to live
deliberately
/ the litter
blows in circles
the wind in the trees
looks like a "dance
of life",
a cliché, but that's how it looks
through the windscreen
**
apparently
off-hand,
slip-shod or casual,
the bulletins crafted
from the finest propaganda
wave
like trees
on the ridge,
presenting a vision
of England 's diaspora
adapted
for us like
the slip-shod glow
of finest vision
20-20 prime-time
crafted
casually
by revenue and region
the bottom-line laid
like a line of pentameter
**
The wind
always blows
let it take whatever it can
of time, river traffic
in the sun, alone
among
many, or
the story of a better life,
of morning
open to the city,
river
traffic,
field of sky,
field of water,
field of, and city
we may
call it
a book of shadows,
'quantitative easing'
last throw of the dice
**
traffic
in the sun,
windy tower blocks, swaying
grasses on the edge of the road,
the voices
of girls in thin dresses
drifting into the dusk
of the shortest day.
Travelodge
is here
to make you feel better off.
Things can only get longer
for the
waifs who stray
through the retail park
lights on 24/7
to the
global window
opening on their lives.
I'd like en-suite bathroom,
food
and beverage options.
