Sat in a fashionable coffee house in the centre of town,

a pot of flavour filled tea lost in the melee

of noise

of the spitting furnace of the gargling dragon

as it pumps out saliva, frothy and burning hot

coming from one end of the pure white interior

where men and women all decked out

in Dulux shades of the same duck breed egg

and their eyes down, screen driven pupils

whilst their tongues never meet the gaze

of the green eyes, dark shades, expectant calls of mercy me,

to other end

where beards older than their wearers

congregate round the lap top stalking

a book on line to provide a quote, that is sat lonely,

tired, bedsit fresh,

behind them and it weeps as the line is misquoted

forever spoiling its day.

 

In this splash of obscure purity that reeks of building foundation

and the down at mobile stare conversation

sits a man dressed all in black, smiling at the waitress

as she dances through on tip toe twice,

once back, once forward,

through the line of M6 traffic standing still,

engines revving in the aroma of human petroleum

and the gas filled empty space, and he stares

at her and the only splash of colour

in this draught board standoff is her hair

and the radiant red of 92 degrees centigrade

illuminates this majesty of acknowledgement that not

everything is two tone face down beige.

 

The man leaves, his daily task

to find something long since past

in the culture of never ending culture

and the cultured stuck to the limited

conversation that being mobile allows,

his ray of sunshine fulfilled

and the dragon’s heavy breathing,

coughing Smaug-like and smog tight,

only stops when darkness closes it eyes.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015