for MWG

Swirling mist was
framed perfectly
softly and invitingly
by the ornate
gilt frame of the
poet’s own antique
bedchamber mirror and
his heart soared as he
turned to another glad
morning’s poetic
contemplation whilst
others wasted with
complaints about London’s
sooty riverside weather

If only and if only
William pondered aloud
if they could but hear the
misty busker’s subway music
quieting primary response
giving way to secondary joys
subterraneously they’d know
glad satisfaction polished
pen in hand leaping to action
Listen now – listen to
silence swirling and the
clip clip clopping of the
hackney cab heading for the
factory yards passing
lamplighters’ ladders leaning

ready for tonight –
hooves ringing on
cobbles where a
century and a
quarter from now a
dropped mobile phone will
sound sonorous too until the
landing renders a
shattering into
nine or ten or eleven
pieces of technology made
useless before iTunes
finished Carole’s playlist and
You’ve Got A Friend

And he remembered the
tornado in Michigan and the
mirror’s paling in that
clapboard house as he
shaved whilst listening to
Banjo the youngest son of the
place playing saxophone in the
basement and thought that out of
mists and mirrors and
life’s fierce blowing
poetry shines forth and the
dolorous horn of the
lighthouse makes a musical
instrument of lamplit misty morning
reminiscences

Simon Marsh