THE MISSING LIBRARY (PART B)
1.
Life disappears before our eyes
then reappears disguised as the past:
a life after life that’s almost life-like.
So many lives, so many times re-cast
and replayed over and over again
always different never quite the same.
A Life’s work that varies in depth and tone
that we carry with us and make our own.
2.
Reality is a tenuous thing that life fails to contain:
the shadow of a library's past slain,
looking back at us through the window pane,
a pale fire flickering in our minds’ eyes
becoming something of a half-lie
half-truth which we never truly regain.
We notice the bike later, it’s parked between the shelves
A missed clue that brings us back to ourselves.
3.
The bikes multiply in front of us like
mutant-ninja turtles with square backpacks
in place of hard shells. They deliver day and night
breakfast, lunch, dinner, Scooby snacks
sat on their saddles like modern cowboys
waiting for Indians and saveloys
like Leonardos bringing us our last supper
while we wait and spread our bread with butter.
4.
Superheroes (just for one day)
they helps us forget the banana peels, the decay.
We fail to see what’s in front of us
let alone what’s behind: it’s just
we can’t tell what’s real
and what’s not: we rely on others
to feed us the information which we can’t be bothered
to validate: to tell us how to think and feel.
5.
A white chair has been deliverooed
to a red phone box that’s serving CASH
Raphael passes us by and whispers something about the food
Navigating through the trash
while the lights are stuck fast on red
He’s gone almost as lightly as he has arrived
Pavement cycling between the pedestrians instead
saving us precious time.
6.
The world’s one big bargain bucket
Finger-lickin’ bad – we just think – fuck it
unable to wipe off the grease stains
As we try to shelter from the acid rain.
No-one speaks to the Colonel despite
the fact he addresses us through neon light:
“Hello Whitechapel” my old friend:
This is the sound of sirens, day through night.
7.
We walk through streets of cobblestones
staring at our mobile phones
keeping between the quadruple lines
rewinding our lives as the cassette untwines,
double checking our likes for signs.
It’s as if we’re in an Irish joke:
Going into a pub twice the bloke
knows – he’s heard us the first time.
8.
Somewhere over the handlebars there’s a
corner we stand on, once in a lulla-
by. A window way up high we never
even noticed, where a girl’s forever
standing. The walls are blue, and yet there is no sky.
A man walks past us and we wonder why
we can’t see her face. We’ll never know
where to find the end of the rainbow.
9.
Can we call our lives our own
when we spend all day reading what’s on our phones?
We barely take in what passes us by
who sees us or who doesn’t half the time.
We live our lives beneath screen protectors
Pirandellian characters in search of a director.
Look up and we would see the camera’s gaze
looking back at us through a CCTV haze.
10.
But if we actually looked – would we find something significant?
The meaning of life and all of its magnificence?
Did you see that green car parked on Brick Lane?
—It’s no coincidence, it’s just insane!
There in front of us, if only for a moment
we think we’ve solved Case Study B!
But then we realised that its just one component
and we’ll never see all of those banana peels.
11.
Listen to me (don’t listen to me)
Sqwalk with me (don’t sqwalk with me)
We’re on the corner where the pigeon’s nest.
(Beep, beep) Fashion Street, turn to the left.
Balanced on the edge, puffing out their chests,
they coo on the ledges, watching us as lest
we “walk on footsteps that we won’t remember”.
A bird’s eye view of a life dis-remembered.
12.
Robin has his feet up on the dashboard
He’s happier reading his Batmobile
than driving it. Updating his profile
he doesn’t notice us, topping a scoreboard
absolutely hidden by the three stripes
of his Adidas world. The yellow lines
that he’s parked upon convey his sense of style.
No wonder he won’t return a smile.
13.
Further up the street we see The Joker
the man who lies over and over.
In life and on the wall he’s become a cartoon clown
But he’d still run us out of town.
He makes everything up as he goes along
blustering and bluffing, he could gurn
for England. He laughs it off, u-turns
when he knows he’s got it wrong.
14.
What’s changed in twenty years? Women
are still followed, harassed or killed by men.
The unease is ever-present, the sense that they must
follow another man to make them trust
that they’re not about to be attacked.
It’s as if the building in front of us
has mirrors for windows so that we can suss
who’s behind us and what’s behind our backs.
15.
A superhero resplendent in plum
is window-dressed and ready for action.
He’ll never be able to protect us – he’s got no thumbs
and his tie is flying in the face of fashion.
It’s caught in mid air. Half-dressed,
made up, unprepared, he’s headless, heedless
in an outfit that wasn’t built to last,
and there’s no hammer to break the glass.
16.
She walks on kyrptonite past the phone shop
where everything is false. No-one stops
to ask why or find out more. We are
but pales shades of ourselves. Life is far
from being real. It’s hard, it’s so tough
that we stand at the great altar
praying at the sign of the crossed finger.
We could be millionaires but it still wouldn’t be enough.
17.
— Happiness is a warm bun, preferably
cinnamon, a coffee cup filled with milk
and hot air. — No, happiness is the warm sun
fresh air or clean sheets made of pure silk.
— No, no. Happiness is a cold tankard
Friday after work when you’ve just clocked off,
sat there on your own reading the *Standard*:
A pair of white trainers fresh out the box.
18.
Not praying, not texting: just listening
to the music that’s rising and falling,
we find some kind of peace at last. Sat down
we decipher the dappled-drawn daylight.
There’s a ghost in His house but He’s left town
and the vision appears only later:
a beautiful mistake, not a saviour.
She just another sublime trick of delight.
19.
It’s not exactly a miracle,
but it’s still heartwarming, incredible,
because they’re standing twenty feet apart.
in “real” life and she is holding his hand, not the other
way round. Maybe this is how we could start,
with love and understanding, like brothers
and sisters trying to create a more
empathetic world, not settling scores.
20.
Maybe it’s time for us to call a cab?
He comes out of Macky Ds, paper bag
in hand, like a dog guarding his bone.
His light is on but there’s no-one home.
He can’t leave yet – he’s got to eat his tea.
He opens the windows, lets in some air.
Parked in/outside with a Big Mac and cheese,
he’s staying put, not going anywhere.
21.
Holy coincidence! It’s our dummy!
Nothing like a superhero, looking
the other way while a man is walking
away with the swag. It isn’t funny—
he looks more like Matt Hancock than Bruce Wayne,
his face filled with such contempt and disdain,
his white tie bent backwards without a care.
22.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time
Should do so reading backwards Hamlet’s lines
That make calamity of so long life
Remembering I was once someone’s wife
Must give us pause – there’s the respect
That is needed: life is far from perfect
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
We are returned equally to the soil.
23.
Who’s the third who talks always beside us?
When we look up at the station concourse
we see the eyes of the pink Octopus
looking askance as if he knows the source.
There are those who square dance, those who just stand,
whilst the tannoy calls for Inspector Sands
to go to Platform Two. We will always
arrive to find him gone, never see his face.
24.
Tumbling off the train we arrive at place where we go and reside
When we have arrived at life’s other side.
We lived here before life: we were mythologised
into life: now we live here simplified,
in a disused signal box where the clocks
have stopped and the transmitters have been blocked.
Here we’ll remain, waiting for that final ride,
as we gradually fade into time’s back side.
