Half a Space

35 minutes
Soho to Waterloo
I can do that
On foot.
26th February,
12.30am.
No jacket,
Just a shirt over a t-shirt
flapping in the wind.
Cold stones of rain hitting,
I maneuver between the crowds
Weaving and streaming
Trickling through like water filling a valley.
I know the way I say,
Observing the road names and differing tribes.
China Town to Embankment,
The people swarm
Like the eye of a storm
Embraced by the loudness,
Creating the electricity,
Losing themselves in the smog.

The stars are restricted from view,
Their presence forgotten,
By the city
That uses and churns light.
Night after night the air is attacked
By noise and light,
Pollution, your screams, their cries.
On Hungerford Bridge my eyes gaze
Two sides of the city alive at 1am.
Bouts of shouting hurries through the air
Amplified but inaudible, coarse
Hastily bouncing over the river and meeting my ear.

Half a space,
knee wedged against the seat,
Prevent the natural limp
that will engage me with a stranger.
A woman in her 30s,
Bare foot and trilby wearing,
Staring blankly
Occasionally catching my eye
Before we turn away.
Her man plays billiards on his phone.
She looks unsatisfied.
He looks clueless.

The business man with his brief case,
The sleeping half cut masses sprawled in seats infested.
Standing, swaying, eyes shut,
Hanging,
Crucified in the centre,
He
mouths the words to his music.
I smile
as I watch him,
Care free,
happy in his place.
The business man looks curiously
at me smiling.
In this moment I continue
To have the freedom of the man miming his song.