A Poem by P.A. Levy

A Very Suburban Scene of Arcadia Avenue in Spring.

 

Looking out from a second storey window

onto clouds of pink blossom, a perspective distorted

when caught in such colour.

  (As if hand tinted for a dream.)

In the breeze these trees look like whispers of bouquets

pretending to be the song

of summers past and gone, but the melody

soon fades; it’s the realisation that this

can’t be set paperweight surreal in acetate.

 

The houses in neat rows, gables in lines of blank expressions

wear a sad countenance of resignation, so very unnatural,

but so are lies,

like the ones believed by the paving slabs

that life was eternal until they saw the cracks.

The dark line that zigzags through us all, and the gap

gets driven further apart by self seeding weeds

to nod their yellow heads and laugh at where the time goes.

 

  Time goes grey…

 

fades far away, like turning the volume down on life.

This unearthly silence is not town or country,

no traffic roar, no birdsong, just the gentle hum

of daisy cutters flexing their blades like savage weapons.

 

And some remember once, scenes of angels on the dancefloor,

  then again,

that could have been a myth created when they pulled the bandstand

down and the music stopped.

  Treading air.

  Standing still,

like two washed out milkbottles

watching grey time from the doorstep.

Patiently they sit in the shade under forsythia’s dying flame

saying nothing to each other.

 

 

 

Born East London but now residing amongst the hedge mumblers of rural Suffolk, P.A.Levy has been published in many magazines, from ‘A cappella Zoo’ to ‘Zygote In My Coffee’ and stations in-between. He is also a founding member of the Clueless Collective and can be found loitering on page corners and wearing hoodies at www.cluelesscollective.co.uk