MAGNETIC SOUP WAGON

 

Perhaps a fumbling shuffle

this promised shift to spirit.

A mistrustful nodding from

those who never made it to the party.

A reassurance like a magnetic

soup wagon among

A dereliction of bricks may

tease us from the cardboard night.

 

Light may come through a

proliferation of windows in

Ringbound schedules. Genuine

prayer mats flattened on floors,

Taken from walls, purchased

on tours of commerce. A piety

Attack like the reinvention

of running by joggers.

 

From us our atomic attachments

may be beaten by vanguards

Running ahead of tanks

with sticks and ideas.

We may sniff a gush of something

in the rush of heat round a petrol bomb.

Or reap a gift from the

cracked head of a hero.

 

Throw together a new vocabulary

tall as minaret and recharge

Our icons to topple tired economics.

Pick at the bones of old faith.

Strive for voice by unmuting

the still good of the past.

Will we slaughter the Sacred Dow ?

Will we choose Rome? Or

Stonehenge?

 

Then again some northern kids

may keep it safe from the magpies

Until we remember ourselves once more

And vow to stay awake this time.

Or, perhaps, it will be parcelled

in the fracture of promise.

Coded in the cold fear that for us

it may not come at all.

 

Donal Thompson

www.donal.info