Nothing is revealed

Nothing is revealed

In the blankness of a stare

Where are you hiding?

There is a whole world

Lying behind the eyes

When did I realise

If I ever did

That lonely birds sing

The same song as all the others?

When I was a kid

Was I aware that old soldiers

Still had dreams

Did I see the future

In other people’s faces,

Or think about myself

As the only universal,

I suspect I did.

Nothing much changes

In me or in them,

When truth is never frozen

Even clarity is obscured

By the opaque rendition

Of a muddled objectivity.

Old realities

Are dragged along kicking and screaming

Into the pictures, we remember

As outdated as a petrol engine.

There was never anything toxic

In being preoccupied with sex

It always seemed to be happening

To someone else

It still is, I guess.

The music drifting in through an open window

Belongs to the people

Who live next door

I don’t know them,

Perhaps that is what makes me

Feel so disconnected

When I try to sing along.