thelibraryrooms

It plays out before you
Video stills, super 8
Camera shake, the flight
Of birds across a square

You are teenage and dream
Caught between childhood
And something; somewhere else
Perhaps trying too hard

An eight track studio,
Boy-friend in the band
Convinced that you are cool
Every Friday night out

The heat of a summer
And a perfect past
When you still laughed,
Unaware it could not last

Dusk
Winter days cold behind you
The length of summer ahead
You are on
Edge

A knot
So tightly wound it has
Neither beginning nor end
It twists inside
You

The scent
Daffodils; cigarettes
Smoked outside at parties
The sharpness of night
Air

Serious
Faces on photographs
Of strangers that you find
Scattered on a
Road

After
The long day, a cold night,
A journey home, you want
Peace

Close
Doors, open windows
Seek to free rooms from
Mustiness

Dust
Covers each surface
Here now, this is the
End

Three times three completes the cycle
You raise yourself onto your feet
Cease to look round
Think of the package in your bag
What it could mean to you later
You had thought the waiting almost
Over. Now that the last passer-by
Is gone and the girl in the red
Dress is on her way home
To a house warmed by fires
Against a winter without end

The thunder has passed, pins
And needles in your feet
Raise you again, now you stand
On toes, checking the time once more
Standing, checking the time
Once more. The moment has
Passed. It is time to move
On. Gather your belongings,
Gather yourself and a muted
Dreaming, move back
Move past, yet you can’t move on

How did we get here?
A set of events
That are some form of puzzle
With neither solution
Nor end, a chance
Encounter that led
To a glance

In a half-known city
Where we are at halt
Facing each other; then
Looking away, like an answer
Lies in the paving stones
And bricks in a wall

I think I hear a whisper
And turn again, only
To look away, suddenly
Transported back to a crowded
Passageway, alone, a sound:
Now on a busy concourse,
With the rhythm of footsteps
A canopy of noise
To accompany me: silence

Valentine’s Day is now over
Your love is not in clover
The card that you did not write was not delivered
The emotion that you did not feel has not faded away

After all it’s OK
Refuse your part, say not a word
Opt out of the commercial tat
That makes some find this day so great
Replace all that love with more hate
Nihilism and all that

The rainbow
Betweeen cloud and sunshine

The snowdrops
Breaking free from frozen earth

The sunlight
From a low, cold, winter sun

The laughter
Of our friends as we gather

The beauty
Of the things which now free us
From memory

You watch the storm clouds
And an almost invisible rainbow
As a weakened sun lights
Angry skies above Lincolnshire

You are dressed to impress and
Already stressed by the thought
Of delays at Potter’s Bar
Would he wait? You can’t be sure

You fall asleep, cat curled, oblivious
Wake at Peterborough see swans
Recall a journey through Germany
At the end of a heat wave

A train stopped on a platform
No reasons given, heat, sun
A moment paused and stored
Some incident on a train the cause

Your fears fade as you watch
Walkers, water-logged fields
You are on time, rare punctuality
Arrival, as expected, no delay

A promised meeting achieved
The warmth of an embrace
Waited for, onward travel
February sun, seaside, Brighton

In a room rotten with dust
The invisible girl makes an appearance
A single bar of sunlight catches rust,
Broken furniture, portraits of sons
Generations lost to histories, wars, other things
She looks round, sees it all, wonders what it brings

She is lost to the sounds
Not that far distant are people
If she was listening she’d hear, instead her fist pounds
Out a beat, that grows weak, feeble
She rubs out her tears, tracks to the left
Turns to her side, sees nothing, feels everything, is bereft

She is both alone and in a crowded place
Claustrophobic, isolated, caught somewhere, in some city
She lifts up her eyes, turns away, covers her face
She feels such a fear, she can not scream, intensity
Banality, evil, all of the toxic things gather
She turns, one purpose, disappearance, nothing else matters

You take your time to say too much today
Far too many words; yet what you wanted
Lines that take you, make you pause, dream away
Ambitious thoughts that might once be mastered
You crave a response, something given back
Something that rewards, gives recognition
Yet you know that what will return will lack
That vigour, that passion, which’s your mission
Instead you reflect, aim to keep it tight
Lock away the flowery sentiment
Tease out your words until they’re nearly right
Borrow from elsewhere, finish, now it’s sent
And as you reach the end of the letter
You know with time you will say it better

It used to be that we heard it in the privacy of our own home
A police man, perhaps, checking first with the neighbours
That this was the right door on which to knock

Or maybe a telephone call late at night
From a phone that shrilled through silence with fear
Broke the night into a blackness without end

Or a letter delivered late by the postman
News written, then read, taken in slowly, processed
Days already passed, the event already made distant

Instead, now, we hear the news everywhere
At bus stops, on train stations, in queues
As a mobile sounds, inappropriate ring tone, 24/7

And now we have nowhere to hide our grief
The tears that we once shed in private homes
Spill out in front of strangers onto pavements

We stand in bars and public houses, shops, supermarkets
We leave stains on the carpets and floors of places
Not suited to the delivery of any news, particularly bad