Sometimes when I’m dreaming

Sometimes when I’m dreaming

I climb a high mountain

Which is often a staircase

Or resembles a building

Maybe the Shard or the Eiffel Tower

The air is sweet with no need for an Oxygen mask

It is warm, there is never any snow

I gaze out over London

Across the roofs of the old town

Which look like stepping stones

A giants causeway

Leading toward the river

A silvery snake

Tourist cruisers look like dragon boats

The Oxford eight edges in front of Cambridge

In the distance getting closer

Looming up before me

I behold Durham cathedral

Rarely do I question

How it suddenly appears

Three Hundred miles covered

In a single beat

It is of no consequence

The River Wear loops around the castle mound

Miners walk across Elvet bridge

Carrying their banners proudly

Eppelton, Seaham, Murton

So many villages torn-in-two

By strikes and poor investment

1984 and all that

Some men have never worked again

Drum Majors toss a mace high into the air

It glitters

As the brass bands play

The people look so small

From the top of Nelson’s column

In Trafalgar Square

I should feel unwell

From the change in location

Squinting through the fog

The traffic is atrocious

It feels like 1954

Feeding the birds with Julie Andrews

There used to be pigeons

Vendors, selling bags of seed

They would mob children

Sitting on a child’s outstretched hands

The tops of heads

Until they were banned

Issued with extermination orders

Ethnically cleansed

Soiling the soul of English heritage

Was their only true crime

So many photo opportunities

Long gone

As I slide down the back of a stone lion

Standing on firm ground

Looking up at Nelson

The Specials sing free Nelson Mandela

As the Poll Tax riots

Rage around me

Back in 1990, when I was a Samaritan

Giving of my time, expecting nothing

And then I am back, on a high ledge

Looking down

Without any suicidal feelings

Wishing I could find a better way

To change the world

Outside of dreaming