Changes

 

Changes

 

If she had been moved to,

the titles are available on You Tube

but she’s content to trust her recall

of a train in a tunnel, stalled.

Frozen traffic on the Severn Bridge,

too, the teeth of cogs, ridged,

something that stamped and stamped,

cold cuts from a passing vagrant.

There’s something about what’s left,

a revulsion, quickening of breath

as she glances at today’s emails

and the flurry of activity, she pales,

considers ubiquity of social platforms,

feels moved to dash out scorn –

it’s the same voices, the same faces,

opinions from sedentary places,

sleeping minds. Ah, what can it be now?

Reluctance, that crosses her brow

like the Zebra is testing the air

and satisfied that nothing’s there

is caught cold in a pincer movement,

food for worms, life spent.

So delete, swipe left, sit back, consider

if ever there was a time she quivered

in anticipation of innovation,

sweeping changes to the nation

that will surely work, pay dividends,

reverse the trends and bookend

row on row of toppling dominos,

one finger flicked and off they go,

but this will halt the flow of canker,

steady the ship, drop the anchor.

Certain she had felt something change,

packed up fags, cut back on booze,

got a bit more picky over food

because that next hangover is the last.

Using Scotchbrite to score the past,

fat burns remains, some black is gone,

forgiveness, yet the hurt and wrong

still rankles, chews up her insides

no matter how she smiles, denies

or feels embarrassed to be telling.

The woodsman hefts an axe for felling

forests now, puts aside his chainsaw;

Paddy Kingsland’s synthesized score

seems inappropriate for her theme,

but at least it wasn’t a wretched dream,

of the and then I awoke convention,

convenient to avoid contention.

Because we want no reset button here,

Nicky Gore, and, full of fear,

climb ev’ry mountain, ford ev’ry stream,

to a cave in heliothrixed rainbow beams

within which, standing quite alone,

the culprit is a bleeding stone.