Poetry

Night Walk

I wanted the world to be a mirror

To see itself, to truly catch

Its urgent message- the contents

Of our minds, our truly absurd

Ways of life: (food, sleep, Shakespeare),

Before the sun burns, before eternal night.

I saw the world once in the night

On the tv, the screen a mirror

Where I saw myself seated like Shakespeare

Behind me, mounted on the wall, Dad’s last catch:

A trout. I saw it in its absurdity

The world a blue marble, rolling around, discontented.

In my pocket is a torch, it lights the contents

of the shadowy street.  Here at night

The moon shines down “How absurd

To see a grey fleck on my mirror”

She must think. I wish I could catch

Her in a net. Someone said that. Was it Shakespeare?

I saw a play once, a Shakespeare

About a girl, Perdita, and the contents

Of her messy family life. I’d catch

Her, keep her safe from knights

But then I’d see her in the mirror,

She can’t be mine, I’m not hers, it’s absurd.

It’s nice here, to walk, in this absurd

Kiddies’ park. Jungle-like, I shake and a spear

Flies out. Only joking. Streetlamps flash in the mirror

Of a cat’s eye. It stares, green flecks marking the contents

page of its lonely mind. It scares me, it’s night…

Light a match, chase shadows, anyone for catch?

I don’t worry though, my mum’s left the door on the catch.

Or is it latch? I can’t think straight, how absurd.

I walk on, it’s getting black, I hear a night-

-ingale sing, sounds like Claire Danes, when she did Shakespeare

I look over the park, the toy contents

Propped up against the sky that looks like a mirror.

If we held a mirror to the contents of the night

We might catch our breaths at the absurd damage

And start again. Or we might turn back to Shakespeare.

Doug Dunn