On bright carpets walls and ceilings
Nothing except emptiness
And eight rightangular corners watching each room
There is no past here
Just bright carpets walls and ceilings
And groups of eight rightangular corners waiting for the new tenants
But close your eyes
And in the darkness
The LEDs and the LCDs and so on are in disarray
A thousand things happening in every room
Unable to stop happening
Nothing can change them they can never go away
All these millions of words
Unchangeable
They don’t seem to know they are prisoners
Mostly hopeful they are en route somewhere else
They don’t seem to realise they are shadows trailing
Like tracks of dinosaurs in the Jurassic mud
Or seismograms of seismic events on Mars
One will smile
A smile sardonic
One will bumble secretly
One with hopeful mein Teutonic
Will try to trap his words
One would like to be ironic
If he could
Wisdom comes
In puffs of smoke
Here is uncle telling niece
Its all something of a joke
Though the minstrels in her life
Would another theme invoke
Clouds of steel
Flash those eyes
And dry that tear
Those eyes will flash with fire forever
And through every passing year
Those eight corners will remember
What in other worlds they hear
And what they see
He who smiles
His smile sardonic
He who bumbles secretly
He with hopeful mein Teutonic
Who tries to trap his words
He who’d like to be ironic
If he could
Meantime
In the sunlight
Where the LEDs and the LCDs and so on all make more or less the same
suspect
statement
The rightangular corners seem to be the only survivors
Undesirably naked
Waiting for the new tenants
With nothing to do except watch the colours
Of bright carpets walls and ceilings
And remember
RAE, 8 May 1977
On bright carpets walls and ceilings
Nothing except emptiness
And eight rightangular corners watching each room
There is no past here
Just bright carpets walls and ceilings
And groups of eight rightangular corners waiting for the new tenants
But close your eyes
And in the darkness
The LEDs and the LCDs and so on are in disarray
A thousand things happening in every room
Unable to stop happening
Nothing can change them they can never go away
All these millions of words
Unchangeable
They don’t seem to know they are prisoners
Mostly hopeful they are en route somewhere else
They don’t seem to realise they are shadows trailing
Like tracks of dinosaurs in the Jurassic mud
Or seismograms of seismic events on Mars
One will smile
A smile sardonic
One will bumble secretly
One with hopeful mein Teutonic
Will try to trap his words
One would like to be ironic
If he could
Wisdom comes
In puffs of smoke
Here is uncle telling niece
Its all something of a joke
Though the minstrels in her life
Would another theme invoke
Clouds of steel
Flash those eyes
And dry that tear
Those eyes will flash with fire forever
And through every passing year
Those eight corners will remember
What in other worlds they hear
And what they see
He who smiles
His smile sardonic
He who bumbles secretly
He with hopeful mein Teutonic
Who tries to trap his words
He who’d like to be ironic
If he could
Meantime
In the sunlight
Where the LEDs and the LCDs and so on all make more or less the same
suspect
statement
The rightangular corners seem to be the only survivors
Undesirably naked
Waiting for the new tenants
With nothing to do except watch the colours
Of bright carpets walls and ceilings
And remember
RAE, 8 May 1977