Cuboid

for Láďa

In a dark little cube that passes for an office,
cluttered with the dismantled hardware of surveillance,
four large screens on the wall display in sequence
live snippets of tired people waiting for a tram
or a blue car slotting into its patchwork segment.

More pressingly arranged around your dimly glowing face,
a row of computer monitors form a control centre,
each engaged in maintaining the thousand eyes of State.
One blinks up a notification. That hosepipe nozzle
you ordered is ready for dispatch, arriving Tuesday.

---

Rounding off a Third Call in as Many Minutes

I swung, impromptu, into a space,
parked up and slumped slightly
into the spread of an unoccupied moment.

The surroundings exhaled and settled.
It was a street that now appeared near empty
and the odd passing car seemed in no hurry,

so was all that rush and clutter just me?
Only the sparrows had instantaneously awoken
as if taking my frenzy upon themselves

while some human voice, smaller in the outdoors,
failed to stop a dachshund licking grass.
What I remember most is the sense of arrival.