I can fly from London to New York
in six minutes; you’ll never catch me
or even know precisely where I am.
I’ll send you messages, but
by the time you receive them
I’ll have moved on,
five billion kilometres from Earth
and counting, reaching out
to new horizons,
a Snow White searching
for dwarves in the Kuiper Belt,
playing in Neptune’s rubble.
I don’t phone often;
nothing to say to you,
yet so much to explain,
so much to transmit
but there’s no phone
in that Goodge Street flat
furniture pinned together,
rented from two old ladies
downstairs in the dress shop
that has no customers
and we imagine they are
mafia godmothers
raking in cash from randy students
exploring outer space
for the first time.
I really like the way the poem moves from outer space to the Goodge Street flat… and back again.
I like its ambiguity too – I’m not quite sure exactly who is speaking to whom…. but great images!
ooh – how life changes …
– and from the big picture to the small detail
– and from the “them” to us becoming the “them”
– and Martin – that thing you do with line breaks which I will never ever be able to do (I might attempt one in a poem and then I freak out)
– do we have to be old to be poets? or is that being cynical? or do we have to be cynical to be poets or is that me being old?
I used to think your poetry was too clinical and left-brain dominated – either you are mellowing or I am becoming more understanding.