The space
It's late night in Dream city again,
with its dark derelict house-rows,
dubious kitchens, tables for two,
corner bars. Where are the friends I seek?
Not in that bar -- that's all folk music.
I drop off my mother there. You'll like this, I say.
I drop her off and walk alone
past people who no longer scare me
now that I've dropped her off.
It's almost midnight and I'm thinking,
at midnight my dream-friends will gather
in a bar next to that one (the folk-music one)
but it doesn't open till midnight
and I can't wait, not even a few minutes,
because there's some place I have to get to inside myself,
so I walk a couple of blocks of my dream-streets
to another bar. Setanta Sports, Guinness,
small, low, grotty, hot,
and my friends are there. They say hello.
They sit and stand around the room.
They are leaving a space for someone
who should be there, but has been lost.
I get a beer, sit by the wall. I'm next to the space.
I listen to their talk.
A senior man storytells, standing up,
projecting his voice over the heads of the gathering.
I hear him but his words don't touch me.
I sit with my beer, quietly breathing, next to the space.
In walks an old colleague of mine, someone from reality.
He used to have curly red hair and a big horsey mouth.
Now his hair is wispy grey and his face has shrivelled.
But I can say his name. He stands in front of me
and I taunt him to guess who I am.
But he doesn't know me --
not without my mother.
--
Janet Jackson
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www.proximity.webhop.net
www.myspace.com/poetjj
Perth Poets: groups.yahoo.com/group/thelinemine
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