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Everything happens fast and then goes –
the new movie you were waiting for
that you’ve suddenly just seen, the tunnel
under the harbour that seemed to take forever
now built and grooved by a million trips.
In winter fruit trees bud, shops
are full of summer clothes; only this
mind is slow, still stalling on the same
questions, never getting it, left behind
by life as by some wild-eyed nag
storming down the street, her hoofprints
pasted in the grass.
And how little of this can actually be seen,
the past as it streaks into the distance behind you,
the tail-lights that blur and merge with the afterglow
of silent buildings? World, dirty emerald,
I accuse – you’re the world and not
its photocopy, ragged-edged and tatty.
And the flower of the moment is too light
to notice, let alone pluck; you sit there on
the nose-cone of your life, buried in the sofa,
where you’ll watch as all the late-night
films gradually become identical. Before
too long we’ll be dead, the screen of life
will be burned right through – go ask
the water riding down the sink what it knows of
death, for this is real speed and it knows more
than me. I type a full stop and an arrow
appears: today is a flickering thing, there’s
not much I could say about today
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