Morning: limbs working but still half asleep.
Mauve mist on the cobbles, blackbird quiet,
the work-drawn crowds in Cable Street muffled,
hushed in our soft somnambulance. We’re all
on our way somewhere, somewhere automatic,
without thought or adrenaline. We move around
our bodies like birds, easily pneumatic,
observing boundaries, off the hook of the will,
walking around asleep, vaguely mindful.
Is this what it’s like to be dead? Easy?
Wrapped in such a mist of haze and weather
that everything’s clear? Could Alexander
leave Diogenes alone, here, now, when Cable
Street’s become the fields of asphodel?