Reading 23 - The Lacerating Road
The Lacerating Road
One night, through the blurred lamplight,
Out running, lone on the lacerating road,
Stranded, before night vision tuned,
Under the tolling gaze of Saint Paul’s,
A secure ward’s Lubyanka call,
A young laced-armed couple, hurry-on by.
With a rank rat-riven rattle of despair,
I recognise the pale khaki-coated boy,
Shot off in the war, The hanging loose shoulder strap,
A bullet I strayed, A life I saved;
But tonight I am alone with bleak desire,
I register the painful longings of youth;
Melancholic nostalgia; A great yawing expanse;
An eternal eterning pleasure; Pain!
Tonight;
The dissonant drifter in cloud and rain,
Brooding on a broken mountain chain.
Tonight;
Saplings snap;
My swan-lake perfume, lingering
Over their peeling pearl petals,
A hesitant fumbling love, laughed and splashed,
A first rushing stream; rugged, rocky and pine.
Tonight;
I loop home lone;
A desolate drinker of beer and brine,
My tears tear the lovers’ cuddled cream.
Tonight;
Loose-limbed trombones
Harp mystic bleeding lines,
Searching lines, Lines of mine,
An effervescent joy,
A bathing buttercup’s meadow'd may,
Their arms entwined sweet and sweat.
Tonight;
Shrill against the baritone range,
I return unbroken - to my distant cave unseen.
