On the train
At the end of
An ancient empire.

Travelling with
An altogether
Different army

Than the one
That built a wall
And spoke Latin.

An ill omen flirts
With the railing
‘One for Sorrow’
A lone magpie

I reach to salute
Then realise
He is not alone
And could never be so,
Not in this city.

‘This would be a beautiful death’
Said the waiter with the lisp.
Limbs, digits and hair entwined.
Double duvet decadence
And awkward alliteration,

Runny egg, silver cutlery
and the whitest whitest bread.
         ‘The whiter the bread the sooner you’re dead...
           ...The whiter the bread the sooner you’re dead’
Regrets and thoughts of one cup meals,
Followed by the unwanted filter coffee.

The happiest hour before midday
And a bed made for dessert
That I’m happy to lay in.

She would make medicine
For the butterflies in their case;
Used tea leaves,
rose petals and water,
Which she would administer
With a cracked pipette
In the hope of waking them
From their slumber.

The impulse
Is
Not to analyse
The impulse
But
Then
The impulse
Is gone

Will archaeologists dig
For veins of code
Lost scripts of forbears
In dead machines
Of love and grace.

On clear days will fathers
Hold children aloft on hilltops
with the render up high, no fog,
And proclaim legacies
Of digital lego.

'Soon child all this will be yours'

Will meaning be found
On a plastic thumb
Under a fingernail of silicon
In a Chain World