No body language
no eye contact to
distract me
it's like being a monk
In an
abandoned monastery,

with just a book
to comfort me
I sit
silently and sift through
the thoughts on these
pages in front of me.

I connect with introspection
which is heading in the same
direction
and fall into the trap if
a trap it might be
of
me.

There's a splendour in isolation
which is absent from a group,
but I'm not duped into believing
I am alone.


Sounds from the street
filtered
though in them I meet
myself,
the beat of my heart
pounds off each page of
this book I'm pretending
to read.

Passing.

the passage of time is unlit
through these hallways I flit
like a shadow
and if shadow I be
who is it that pretends to be me?

I suppose the monk knows or
he did
long before the reformation
long before this situation
arose.

There's a bell ringing on the bus,
a bit like the church bells
but
without all that religion and stuff

off and on the day goes on
I go along too.

I see tall City buildings ahead
looking like dragons teeth,
the
sleeping giants in a bed
of clay.

Wednesday and contacts were few
because
nobody knew what to say,

not yet a quarter way through it
already sick of it and
the crazies are out on the streets.


I am encouraged by
the colour of
the sky
a dullish
Welsh slate grey
it might rain today to wash
these thoughts away.

I really hope it does.