She speaks to me from the screen of poets passion and poetry The backdrop a bookshelf a piano a nobel man I listen from my couch on the bus from my bed on a Sunday morning Mesmerised by the poetic of the speaker The sound of a passing train on its way to Adlestrop where Edwards captured a moment of ease But moments can turn in an instant like Sexton lost in the obliquity of bad poetry *** church steeples Is poetry lost out the window of the bus in the rain? If I am a poet am I in danger like Silvia of dying in darkness in the shade of the yew tree? For she cannot hear me though I speak to the screen of my love for poetry and a dream The silent piano a ventriloquist rescues the poet and her poetry from the fishhouses of gods sea Yet I cannot believe in a god who leaves the beggar I see out the window of the bus to sleep in the rain alone In the mill I grind words for politicians who make the beds of stone for the beggar to sleep on in the rain whilst they fatten the pockets of the privileged and the rich I board the bus covered in flour that sticks to me like guilt for my part in the grinding But once on the bus I must follow my heart unless it is broken Then I must lead it to mending through words tied together with strings and feeling