Awake in the notches of the evening,
The glimmers of reality between the druggings and rushes
Of modern culture
I lean after the numinous, the catching
Of experience that knocks the heart sideways,
That loops the imagination and starts it basketballing
A scenario, a screenplay, endlessly onto the
Frivolous silver screen of my night dreams.
Unlike that heady sport,
There are no satisfying slam-dunks,
No lofty bounds out of earth-ties,
Where I might have dipped my head back
In applause and recognition
Swimming on strongly towards
The sparkle and colour of victory.
But meetings of minds are so hard to sustain,
So slippery that a testified leap of the spirit
Gets fossilized then despised and left behind.
Along from the treadmill of my daily commute,
I shiver past flannel patches of pastel colour,
I flicker through amber undulations of deserted meadow
That timidly pants it way back to the urban
Hedgerow and the electric tint at stolid windows.
I have shed the image of a longer liver
Of a giant with broad shoulders and a word for each occasion
The savant and the leader, who sees things as they are.
I move between two points and grow smaller,
Yet my journey crackles and my face is tingling,
Surreptitious now and grateful for the moment,
Each notch, each nook I nudge up against
Is a temporary purchase that keeps me steady.
