SMALL WORLD TURNING

Once more round a weary sun

The solemn seasons

Tumble on

A requiem

A half heard song

There’s no time to sing along

Before the tune has passed

 

We’re Hardy weeds

We plant our flags

Squeeze the glory from the rags

Play out wars like parlour games 

The end of days in 30 frames

History doesn’t want the names

Of such a z list cast

 

And London's busy raising Cain

In sweated streets of puddled rain

From Magdalene to Mary Jane

Here to Eton

Back again

The fairytales of dancing tongues

Silver spooned and leather lunged

Rip their way through betting shops

Through village halls and pay check drops

Through hard cash to the suburb stops

Another God damn camelot

 

And Laura got home late today

Working nights for daytime pay

What is it her mum used to say?

‘Well love you got to smile’

Laura wraps her baby safe

In borrowed clothes donated drapes

And when she looks into his face

She sees a million miles

 

Beyond the blue screen tin pot dreams

The shop front lives

The dreary memes

Of perfect skin

Miracle creams

And every twisted little scheme

A human mind can bend or dream

On into space where atoms spin

And stretch their watery phantom limbs

To join with others bonded in

The union and the burn

 

And as she looks she hears him stir

He moves his arms and moves the air

Which opens, stretching out in prayer

Through the future waiting there

And outward like a secret tide

Til elegant and amplified

The stars brush the sleep from their eyes

Look down through the endless skies

And hear the tiny mewling cries

Of a small 

World

 Turning