The trap
by Ray Templeton
[ poetry - july 09 ]
Here in this room, this sealed apartment,
we can watch the future on the news,
while these wasted times we live through,
flicker on the history channel.
From the window, see the predator patrols,
the shattered, shambled lines drag to the trains.
We twist the dial, kill the interference,
and catch the liberators’ first reports.
Every day we tune the radio, but we’ve already
seen which side will win, can filter out the lies.
One night we heard the leaders promising
more war, more death, more heroes
than we’d ever seen before. A few days on,
we watched them in a documentary’s
scratched monochrome: the crowd,
eyes blank, cheering to the echo.
Sometimes they broadcast only music;
we sit and listen here in silence,
scales blown like barren seeds -
they scatter, dried and shrivelling.
My head is bad again. The snow
has clustered on red rooftiles,
drifts in the streets. This used to be
my favourite time of year, but now
I see figures fight the blizzards,
avoiding the militia. I turn away
and sit here twisting time in hands
that draw the days to their enduring limit.
I’m alone now; this room oppresses me:
lightless corners, heavy furniture,
the plant on the sill with its tight green tendrils.
Past, present, future all decay.
A sound like goods trucks shuttling;
a light, in frenzy, dancing on the ceiling.
The signals speak, a cipher is decoded;
the storm out there thumps the window frame.
