Jenny Joseph
Old night
There is a dark river called Chaos,
And it glitters, being thick and dark, with cusps of brilliance
Which make nothing visible.
To its bank even the sunny child
Destined, you'd say, for open meadows, comes.
No river of forgetfulness
Lethe or Acheron or tide that brings
Annihilation where all roll to rest.
No, this is the flood one, the Stirrer
The one that whirls rot, garbage
Suddenly above its banks, throws up
Defilation, broken things.
Equally swept to this littoral, shells
Of uprightness, the beaming surfaces
Ofmother- of- pearl success.
Whichever road they were going they arrive at this shore.
Here good comportment stands with smiling face
Nevertheless for virtue come to this ditch.
You are weeping in some smashed place,
A place now used only for getting out of,
All its windows oflight shuttered up, bedaubed.
Grit stings and greasy rubbish mires your ankles
As you wait in this sour wreck for shattered buses.
What has happened?
Your idea of your life
Our idea of a town -
Come to this?
Some think they can ride it as the skateboard boys,
Manipulating gravity, shoot out from dark tunnels
Balancing up into daylight on a wave ofwill
Their lithe persons now nothing but extreme desire.
But not this chariot.
