Semi-automatic eyelids flicker,
Backdrops glare through thick black lines.
Fast forward tracks on silver halide,
Detail removed, spoiled by light.
A scene defected as clarity hides.

Rib-cage rattle engine backfire;
A marble rotates on the edge of a knife.
Three-hundred bodies drift by aligned:
All voices unify into a singular baritone
Outfits blur like the traffic at night.

Cloud cover grows, the audience subsides
Calmness prevails, relaxing your mind
Shoulders sink to back to a perch
A low ISO repairs the flooding of light
Each silhouette regains its detail

As passers by regain their autonomy
A low ISO repairs the flooding of light
Each silhouette regaining its detail
Sweat stops pouring from over your brow
Conjoined voices become conversations

Clouds cover cracks as the day drifts by
A marble taps the brickwork below
As vertical beams shoot from the sky
Get back to your feet, pray to the night.

They say that darkness is the absence of light
And white is the absence of colour
That it's not the size of the dog in the fight
Rather the darkness we ****'t discover

Why then when we close our eyes
And cause the dying of the light
Does peace engulf that very moment
And stay for the rest of the night?

In veritable virtue we abscond
The joyful absence of light
Where every hero needs a villain
As nighttime cracks with light

The wakened soul is ill contented
While the ignorant live gleeful
Maybe then absence itself
Is joy, and saturation tearful:

A silent lakeside at four AM
VS a motorway at rush hour.
Darkness is nothingness, silence
and solitude, the latter a bell tower.

When but a couple of variables collide
They can result in utter chaos
When nighttime falls and all goes quiet
The violence tends to trail off.

So ask yourself why fear the darkness,
The inevitable absence of light;
Is it then an unwillingness
Which gives the dog its fight?

Should I dare to leave your side
You grimace, blinking vacantly
‘I couldn’t bear to be alone if ever I died’

In latency, the true mask of life hides
Your whole world would be empty
Should I dare to leave your side

The lace of your last dying wish untied
Loneliness is absence recurring eternally
‘I couldn’t bear to be alone if ever I died’

I won’t leave the room sufficed you’re still alive
What sort of gratitude would it show of me
Should I dare to leave your side

If I gave in reluctantly, famished, red-eyed
Your disquiet would grow infinitely
‘I couldn’t bear to be alone if ever I died’

Love is all that stops me from dying inside
There would be no final anything
Should I dare to leave your side
I couldn't bear it if you died

The taxi is silent the driver's stopped trying
A crossing appears with no pedestrians crossing
Houses line the street with a warm yellow lighting
The night drizzle lightens, the pavements start frosting.

Shouldn't winter nights be spent comfortably
Rapped in familiarity?

Turn into the car park, the barrier is rising
Wretched is the destination, cold and disheartening
One day you'll return and your mindset will brighten
For now we will visit under the cold grey lighting.

Should I dare to peak inside?
The driver shrugs. I daren't decide.

The automatic doors squeak ominously open
No round of applause, no standing ovations
A pin could be heard, the canteen is broken
Seldom celebrated, there are few worse locations.

Should I lower my temperament
Become stoic and sensible?

The escalator moans while taking us further
The corridors smell stale, they echo a murmur
A slip-away comment in a labyrinth of tension
Hospital blue reflects in the eyes of the visitors.

Could I muster the strength to go inside?
I'm here, I've done it, all sadness must hide.

The nurse hands over the apron, i feel inhuman,
You lie propped on a cushion, restlessly muttering.
'It's a bad dream, it's okay' I'm nervously stuttering.
My stomach churns at the pain you're experiencing.

Should i dare to show my tears?
I needn't alarm onlookers and familiars.

Your bed-light flickers, the room dissapears
In the darkness we're calm, inhibitions are cleared
Such split-second clarity has calmed me for years.
I smile fearlessly pulling your hand gently nearer.

Should I dare to leave your side?
I'd blame myself, it would shatter my pride.

So here we sit for hours on end, semiconscious
Semi-talking, the volta on which all cruxces depend
Your dream-like graciousness cleanses and encompasses;
Myself and others, regale tales of your accomplishments.

The cityscape cowers beside the desk
Concrete kingdoms hide glass and brick
The adjacent high-rise hides half the skyline
A hotel sinks in anonymous uniformity.

Twelve lights disturb the chalky colour scheme
Before comfortable sepia returns to greyscale
Fatigued blue lights turn to gold and brown;
Ash to brick, fog to smoke, cold... to warm.

Wreckers creep forward as the crowds shriek,
The brutalists weep the loss of a legacy
As all around marvel at what sits behind
Nostalgia blinds us with the tearing of bandages.

The camera pans right, the dust curtain moves east
The show goes on, the crowd stand amazed
Fallen protagonists cannot hide past misdemeanors
The hero's were in the prelude, not the denouement.

Cranes move in, mile high ladders move beams.
Rebuilding the city to obscure its history
The scars themselves in their mid seventies
The tragedies which bore the bones of fragility.

When bombs rain and recession follows
The buildings we raise are only temporary
Let us thank those who battled their right to exist
Their former glory is now something missed.

Anticipation spans the season
Gone so fast with just a trace
You leave no rhyme nor reason
Off you fly with cold malice.

Even the driest patch of grass
Restores its former chloroplasts
Bright green trees begin to fade
Your legacy is leaving.

Splash, the constant drumming
Sets the tempo and transition
Swap the pastels for pantones
Go indoors and reposition.

Not one to miss a queue
This rain was built to last
The whipping winds harmonise
Like blowing over hollow glass.

The interval is all but over
The show yet to be recast
Fly in the white cliffs above
The Dover shore blends at last.

The tapping of rain becomes a thud
As the treetop leaves lose their colour
Gales whip up - down empty streets
The people crowd indoors in horror.

Fearsome is the cold and wet
Now that joy and happiness has passed
Regale stories of the Summer
And hope that winter retreats as fast.

Sonder through suburbia,
Distort reflections in the glass,
Slow the frame rate on the film,
Saccadic masking, bridge the gap.

Focus closer, narrowing aperture
See cerulean wondering past
Heart murmur, tempo change
The choreographer sits back.

Rigor mortis sit's deep behind
A clock-tower's frozen hands
Obscured, in the clouds above
A backdrop of smog and ash.

First printed, never copied
Light swamps the negative.
Lucidity - luxury of the present
Rarely present in the past.

As the hanging shadow lifts
The clock-face remains steadfast
Witness hands skip a beat,
Background characters advance.

Step after step, strangers move along;
Each vivid moment lost in sepia
But she, the blue eyed girl glances
Back at you, frozen, stiff, aghast.