Richard Pierce

Richard Pierce – author, poet, painter

Life, Poetry

Day 333

ANGLIA SQUARE

The irony of the undertaker called Stork,
The slide of the street into the city,
The Square under the flyover
That’s not a square, and where the
Buses echo along blacked-out lanes,
The cold and the shadows, the
Permanence of impermanence,
Fly-by-nights, vagrants, through-
Travellers, non-stoppers, sleep-overers
In the steam up from the warm
Sewers, sweat shops, charity shops,
Closing barriers, hasty good-byes
In the candle light, broken empty windows,
Traffic jams, the aimless and homeless,
The hand-in-pocketers, a statue,
A church, a sepulchre, a dead end.

Moving lights on the top deck,
Anonymous faces and bodies, blank
Eyes, worshippers, atheists, dead
Insiders, pessimists, optimists, glass
Half fullers, glass half emptiers,
The voiceless, the harmless, the
Invalids, the valids, the impressionists,
The forgetters, the drinkers, the coffeeists,
The vinyl elitists, the vinyl inclusivists,
The barren, the fertile, the dreamers,
The realists, the self-doubters, the pouters,
The smilers, the criers, the senseless,
The careless, the carers, the honest,
The liars, the shop windows reflecting,
The pulsing hearts, the cold souls,
The lost souls, the ruins, the restored,
All the churches, and all the memories,
Cold paving slabs, sloping in the rain.

The city, sleeping, waking, drifting,
Resting, chasing, waiting, watching,
Alive, dead, resurrected, all stone,
All cobbles, all history, all feet
And walking and stalking and
Wanting, and breathless and
Final.

 

R, 29/11/2022, 17:55

Get notifications of new posts by email.

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

Leave a Reply