Silbury
a violent absence
that missing bike
on the last day of school
a brute reality
of theft
to welcome a pretender
into supposed adulthood
twenty years on
the rattling borrowed racer
left at the foot
of Silbury Hill
part of the ancient attempt
to refill with meaning
the endless void
of incomprehension
at the strange blankness
of things
meditating there at the top
illegally
hoping for some transcedence
or peace
I felt the background maw
of the abyss
eternally waiting
under the futile upward struggle
of feeble life
recycling
back to Swindon
back to struggle
and disbelief at the hardness
of achieving even banal normalities
against the roar
of that apocalyptic
silence
HC: 2017