Magnetic Soup Wagon

Perhaps a fumbling shuffle this promised shift to spirit.
A mistrustful nodding from
those who never made it to the party.
A reassurance like a magnetic
soup wagon among
A dereliction of bricks may
tease us from the cardboard night.

 Light may come through a proliferation of windows in
ringbound schedules.
Genuine prayer mats flattened on floors,
taken from walls, purchased
on tours of commerce. A piety
attack like the reinvention of running by joggers.

 From us our atomic attachments may be beaten by vanguards
running ahead of tanks
with sticks and ideas.
We may sniff a gush of something
in the rush of heat round a petrol bomb.
Or reap a gift from the
cracked head of a hero.

 Throw together a new vocabulary tall as minaret and recharge
our icons to topple tired economics.
Pick at the bones of old faith.
Strive for voice by unmuting the still good of the past.
Will we slaughter the Sacred Dow ?
Will we choose Rome ? Or Stonehenge ?

Then again some northern kids
may keep it safe from the magpies
until we remember ourselves once more
and vow to stay awake this time.
Or, perhaps, it will be parcelled in the fracture of promise,
coded in the cold fear that for us it may not come at all.