I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.
-Socrates
Don’t forget – we’ve been here before.
We who can’t forget the spike
or the Ganger’s fist across the ear –
pulling electric cable (thick as a man’s arm)
through trenches of mud and snow
on the high Saddleworth moors
of the M62. Of course, we’re older now,
old enough to remember the chill
of missing children (older and more refined
than any history of your making).
You who close your eyes
to those who beg under the dim light
of ‘Revelations,’ which sever the workaday
commute from the sideshow
proposition. Oh tell us, where our freedom lies –
(we who were born without any calling
or sign) while the subway
‘Apocalyptists,’ act as human billboards
sandwiched between The Number of the Beast
is 666! and Behold, the Lord!
We who were born before (the silicone chip
and the end of the world) hold aloft a telescope
to our future lives as gentlemen
balloonists. If you pass this way again –
only to find your passage
blocked by old men drumming up
tea in the rain. Remember, old age holds
every story in its palm, (even this story)
between the clockface and page
which is now your story.
Mark A. Murphy is a self-educated, neurodivergent, ‘Ace’ writer from a working class background. He has published several hundred poems in print and online in 18 countries. He has published eleven collections to date with several more in the pipeline.