I Drift

I am silent, but I am here.

We are all silent;

watching television,

sleeping, drooling,

dignity seeping, slowly, away.

 

And the man drones on

about the secret life of bees

and sundry glands,

including Nassanof’s

which belongs to honey variants

rather than a Russian entomologist.

 

It secretes a pheromone

attracting workers like an

East Anglian field

or urban building site,

which belong to moneyed invisibles

rather than an English conglomoration.

 

I drift. I drift on sleep.

Wish for wonders, wish and weep.

 

And the voice is there

within the secret life of dreams

and joining hands

believing miracles

which become a sunny counterpoint

rather than a goulish interpretation.

 

I drift.

Wish for wonders, wish and weep.

 

I remember whistling.

People tuneful in the street.

A favourite song, learned on the piano

or heard on the wireless,

or seen at the Rialto,

the Odeon or in some long-demolished

art deco beauty.

 

People sing in my dreams.

 

I drift.

 

My boat, a g-plan ark for one

in the sea of misery and piss,

in the company of the silent

abandoned and imprisoned,

bereft of memory and cognition.

 

I wish.

 

I weep.