LOCARNO

Locarno

There are two sides to the light fantastic.

Inside,men tipsy and thin as drainpipes,

right as ninepence in the dim balcony.

Outside,women worried and watch clocking,

now the soft queue shuffle has given way

to the hard tap of late stilettoes.

Rolled between them like a thin cigarette

the escape committee convenes weakly

not knowing that forty years on

the mirror ball will find them all

older and no wiser in it’s new home.

Tony Noon

EMPTY FLOOR

EMPTY FLOOR

The thin smile of acoustic air

anchors me;

ties me to the cold north

and it's histories of loss.

The echo of discarnate voice

draws me;

leads me to the dark valley

and it's legacies of ash.

The ricochet of regret

surrounds me;

backs me to the corner

and it's memories.

And lights are changing on an empty floor.

The lights are changing on an empty floor.

Tony Noon

                                                                                    image: www.freeimages.co.uk

THE CIRCLE

I see the sunny days.

The sober managers of building societies,

banks, maybe. Button bright

in their certain trajectories

I see the neat wives,shining.

Millponds of virgin tarmac

hold back trees, allowing

the long hours to hide

small dramas like bones

in lawn tidy gardens.

I see the blue sky corners.

Post Boxes,hungry for gossip,

are gateway and godsend here.

Their slow digestion filling

these avenues with promise

for days, weeks maybe,

until response confirms the circle.

I see the sunny days

in ages tailed back on broken roads;

in the weedful remnants of dead factories;

and in social media I feel I can’t ignore.

Tony Noon

CATS and MATS

CATS and MATS

They were conceptual of course.

Cats, Mats, the whole shebang.

Metaphorical constructs designed

to teach the order of things.

Not real cats. Not mats you

yourself could sit on.

Now though,you have friends

or friends of friends

who see them and when you talk

in quiet corners you wonder

if maybe there really was a cat

and what the mat was made of .

You wonder why they were there.

You wonder most of all who hid

the facts behind the headline.

Tony Noon