Moving up Salisbury Road
with some sunshine showing inside,
the bus coming out of town
at this time of morning
is almost empty.
Strolling down the hill is Carl
with his hair surfeit
and the mere patch of face.
A medal hangs from his neck
two days since the games began.
It serves as an amulet
warding off those clouds
of indignant flies
respectable lungs blow out.
His perfect ease won't give away
that secret victory. He keeps it
in closed, cupped, imagined hands.
We carry on up to the village,
going the wrong way slowly
with nothing as golden to show.
the mere patch of his face...
ReplyDeleteI like this a lot.
Thanks, Jonathan.
ReplyDeleteThe poem itself an amulet of protection against the naff extravaganza of "The Games".
ReplyDeleteLet the ersatz techno-commercial-high security Games go unnoticed, let such minor wrong-way lives be seen and celebrated, remembered with respect and held to, as outcroppings of the human amid the sea of glitz and apps and anachronistic nationalism and plastic money.
Carl has been knocking around Moseley, the district of Birmingham where I grew up, since I was a child. He's always browsing the charity shops looking for fine items of adornment. To catch him that day with the medal on was serendipitous.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, TC: those minor lives are the human ones.