Poet Tim
RAF Northolt Fire Escape
A way up the stream we discover fire gates,
open grass beyond, mossy concrete bridge,
and a dubious notice, warning that
jeeps might crash through at any time
into the weed-stricken gravelway,
revving top brass westward from a fireballing drone,
or convoy the children of soldiers
out from under a warhead.
It wouldn’t be a drill.
But now it stands abandoned, meaningless,
hedgebound, untouched by tyres,
forgotten by the minister,
visited sporadically by sun and walkers, while
those uniform people, mysterious to us over the fences,
let it dilapidate, play football, do washing
and put away, with the kids’ pyjamas in the airing cupboard,
the thought of taking them out into that cliff edge night.
by Tim
On the Grand Union Canal, passing by the Nestlé Factory in Hayes, Middlesex
where, if a silo overturned, replaced the water in the canal
with custard, or rice pudding,
my boat would leave
a longer impression
than it does now while stalking this swan
under two grey carriageways,
getting by a town you once
knew, that once threw
mother’s milk and milky bars
into your sandal and sock
past. Your ghost peering over a rail,
on the bank, lusty for the scent
of trifle, would watch as I,
your future, splattered by,
or else if this were the surface
of a record from the Vinyl Factory,
my boat cutting a groove,
that repeated turning recalls
perfectly every time,
then I would be more than
a temporary dent in your mind
but our brains are just
a setting concoction of carnation milk,
banana shake powder, perturbed by electric,
so from each moment you capture my likeness,
cleavings get unmade, information rewritten, and...
on the canal, there’s a swirl, like coffee
being stirred and my moving weight is
gone, the surface sane again,
just a few bubbles, a little settling silt.
By Tim
Video through Hillingdon on the Grand Union Canal
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