Hope In Any Other

 

Sitting outside the Welcome Break

where mental meteors abound

In armoured constellations:

Money, love, my ownliness

Lie shattered on its grimy ground.

No mask denies my consternation,

The burnt ones being still alive.

The city churns out embedded harm

At passing motorways of hopelessness;

Conveyor belts that strain and strive

To deliver startled echoes of alarm.

 

Safe within my bell jar I chance glances as

Swarms of empty travellers ebb and flow

Across stained tiles yelling inanely,

Thus guaranteeing mutual incomprehension.

Is this our future? A brutal track that goes insanely

To Everywhere? Or a sanctioned antisocial test

Designed to collect the secrets of our existence?

Needing confirmation on the point, I stand

And stride with purpose and aplomb to wrest

Myself from the mob's cacophonous embrace,

I sprint for the car: the roiling throng I outdistance.

 

Chris Hubbard, 2021