Graham Mort
Notes On The London Underground
We float face-up in windows on the Tube,
past cables pumped-out like a junkie’s arm;
no talk, just wheels on steel, the hiss of
brakes pressing with their insane calm.
Workmen in dayglo orange coats are here,
restoring something among ghostly crowds;
above this tunnel’s held-back tons of clay
are city spires still reaching for the clouds.
Madonna of wraiths, that woman paints her lips,
a mirror pixillates to dust-motes in her palm -
event-horizon of a hole we travel in, not through.
She dabs on mascara’s voodoo charm.
Brake linings burn, we stall, shunt forward,
touch, avoid each other’s eyes or stare where
hoardings sell the city to itself, until Bacardi,
Coke, and Palm Beach holidays become a blur.
At Charing Cross we step through shushing
doors into a prickly, feral heat. There’s nowhere
now to go but up; we file through turnstiles,
spill as surplus change onto the street.
Released, we breathe monoxide air where
sky is carbonised by dusk. The homeless
crouch in doorways, endure days designed
to strip the kernel from the husk.
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