To Nancy
You are sleeping now ferryboats are pulling into port
weary at dusk scintilla of the sun’s closing fight
dances on ebb tide like a flock of silver osprey
to the asthmatic fishermen
in this dock café your silence is wiser than any cycle of the moon
they blow cigar plumes toward the window in quiet respect of your slumber
when you are old enough
to understand, know, as you read this-
that the world, as was ours then
now belongs to you
Andrew Taylor's Appendix
High as a pylon here I am, the apparition again
floating through town gargoyles watch from Cunard building
there are voices all around me
I mill into Waterstones
to steal my millionth book
(one day I pledge to pay back
this debt) it is a huge anniversary edition
of Gravity’s Rainbow
as I make my escape,
sweating on the escalator
from somewhere near my
frontal lobe, I hear the faint sound of Andrew Taylor’s infected
appendix-
it is recommending me
albums to listen to in my enlightened state!
Low Spirit of Eden
Double Negative
Moonlight Drive
The Marble Index
Tracks and Traces
having left no track or trace
of myself I vanish into the subway
a momentary waking
as the train approaches
before a 10mg blackmarket
Diazepam
takes possession of me again
M6 Toll Diary
There is water beneath the surface of Mars. They are sure of that now, it is said.
That line from Orpheus: The role of the dreamer is to accept his dreams. I am dreaming about being among the audience members at a televised stand-up comedy show. I am the camera operative. Moving up and down the aisle, I choose who to film at the moment the comedian drops his punch line. I zoom in on a fat woman in pearls, who is doubled up with laughter, red lipstick smeared across her teeth. Her laughter is phonetically the exact sound of my mother’s name.
One hour ago I swallowed 2x10mg Diazepam tablets in a motorway service station, because the endless, expanding road on this journey is appearing to me as the spine of an infinite demon, and I would like for that vision to ease somewhat (which it has).
I’m riding drowsily in the back of a seven-seater people carrier. There is the faint sound of football commentary from the radio on the front dash. In lucid moments, I watch the beauty of green England blurring by. When I look skyward, I’m navigating faint star maps that appear slowly with the encroaching dusk. I am moving toward home.
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Nick Power is a musician and author of four books- Small Town Chase, Holy Nowhere, Caravan and Into The Void, and the co-author of Lowdeine Chronicles. His favourite poems come from the subconscious and he thinks they should be allowed to speak for themselves.
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