The view from here

The view from here

I Fog

Newcastle has gone,

and Gateshead. A fragment of Tyne

locked like an anchor in mud

a few blue-grey roofs some

street lights and steep houses

chain it to me and separate us,

buses form themselves from air,

vanish to nowhere; memory

is myth.

II Lucid

It rained overnight. Black ashphalt

sparkles with pleasure at being

walked upon, wild buses play tag

to their destinations always

leaving because they've arrived.

I can see distant green-brown

bounding hills streaked with houses

and imagine tiny people

imagining us.

III Nocturne

Brighter at night against the dark

the wealth and lunacy of the city

reflected on the surface

of the empty river, still

great crack, laughter, an argument

with my face in Fenwick's window

till, by uneven steps, I miss

the final metro home; home

is fiction.

IV Sight

We are as ants and less than ants

scrawling our sentences like

scent trails over dust

each I a monarch

in its own domain;

quod scripsi, fecit.