I was coming home from work,
this time from Amsterdam
where I presented all day.
Now late at night it’s the last leg – a train.
Suited, tired, and 50,
I am irrelevant to the girls
that sit across from me,
sharing ear buds
and as they select tracks,
dark quays elevate East London lights
that move with the minutes,
making a pop-up stage
for their dissonant voices
and the brash half-dance
of the one on the right
who magnifies the resonance she feels
until she can’t contain it
and her fingers trace
a sonic landscape in space
that she exudes
while prim passengers steal looks.
The girls know, but that does not drive
the show,
no – they were doing this in the fishbowl
of an empty carriage
when it first arrived,
greater then in their solitude
before being diminished
by an audience,
like an allegory for something we
grasp a-priori.
Is life simpler than work makes it?
To groove in forgotten places
could be enough
and through trivial rebellions
enlarge ourselves
by flaunting how we self-define,
imbuing the darkness
with the briefest shine.
Edward Lees is an American who lives in London. He has been writing poems for many years, but has only recently started to share them. During the day he works to help the environment.
Sparks of Calliope 