Bodies of transportation

1

This passage of dark and light
carriage of peaceful rushing
and driver of monotone voice

could all be courtesy of a public body
or even private company
Unthinking faces meditate the way

to a morning revealed
above the ground beneath the sun
as a kind of project

with a dead certainty that more will happen
more stations more bodies will pass
before the eyes more desires


2

Drawn as to a ghost
to a blank page
to mark its face

in the tranquility of Munich’s last Sunday in May
and to reveal the lost expressionism
of vulgar flesh and casual dress

the pungent sprig of rosemary
the need to go on regardless
the beauty of the colours called green

I have invented but haven’t yet
destroyed you
The voices rumble above the café

and the answer isn’t in your name
Instead I adopt only commas
for the necessity of pausing

for brief absences of sound
to aid the understanding
Do you see the mark

for hearing this aspiration?
I never knew I’d reach this table
or get to this point of silence


3

No-one knows the strange spiral
to which want always points
and spins on brief meetings

It attaches to all things
imagined and made
and to precarious freedoms

of persons almost all of whose wants
appear in reach
just to touch


4

Slight irritations like a lawn-mower
a lost pin or lost message
interfere with a fine morning

Thoughts and interruptions to thoughts
pass one by station by station
They crowd the carriage

and then they leave
They share your seat
but are too polite to speak


5

I hear it said that somewhere
is where they want to go
or so the people complain

That somewhere
can’t be found on the map
of underground lines

It won’t be reached
at Münchner Freiheit
or Goetheplatz

it isn’t in the soles of the shoes
or the bikini tops
advertised on walls

it isn’t found in anyone’s face
no matter how compelling
nor how soft the look

Somewhere anywhere
What difference does it make?
It’s where you wanted to go


Munich, May 2005