Mark Pirie

poet - writer - editor - publisher

Downtown Notes, on paper

(For Tony Towle)

Walking around
I cut the size of a building
down to size. It's far
taller than the length of her body, say,
oddly swaying now in the breeze -

That woman, ahead, I don't know her,
but I wonder, what does she want?
Carrying all of summer in her dress, I follow her, and
envisage a growing winter in her eyes. It's the Fall,
she leads me to, first, if I pursue her. I enter a shop
there are crowds of people
and they all want, want, want...but even so

I mightn't have it, and that's probably what they think,
and all I care for. Right now this 'song in town'
is looking for direction. I take the side
of the building outside and set it free.
I watch it rise; it looms over me once more
on its way back to the clouds, and from whence it came, initially,
into view. It's what these people might believe
or want, like a telephone line permanently hanging in the distance,
a disappointing heaven. Meanwhile, a coffee calls.

And I, gladly, take it.

Boxing Day 2006