Poem – In Transit (By David Russell)

In Transit

 

Unemployed’s tube journey:

For those safe,  definable few minutes there is the duality

Of oneself and the comfort of the seat – the circle;

Seal; it chops perfectly, crossing the antilinear.

 

It induces connexity; the most complete awareness of the toil and monotony which went into making the tube, and the seat inside the train inside the tube, the toil and boredom in which the seat – pitchfork of absorption and repulsion, circulates.

 

One straddles directions like a novice mishandling a catamaran.

 

Unemployment cleans edges and puts the bending glass to the centre, breaks down the circumferences into which one’s parts can blur – raises new, clear bars the other way –  for the world outside is a blasted, blurring circumference.

 

When confronted with the bare four hours, the only certain work, one acts like a man playing with transfers.

 

Peel the paper off the top – sling it; it irks you.

 

But you still like the idea of topness and paperness as something permanent –

Without it, the pretty design will truly go to pot – Being merely liquid.

 

[su_david_russell_speculum]