Roger Hudson Poems

Edging forward the expectant queue
Becomes more expectant as box office nears
At Odeon Playhouse Plaza
As denizens emerge to blink in alien daylight
...

Waiting queuing
Queuing waiting
Checking double-checking
Security bureaucracy
...

In zinc tub
on red tiles of kitchen floor
his mother scrubs his back,
as he sits in the few inches
...

Waaah waah
Waah waaah
My turn, is it my turn
Rousing, feet plodding, eyes forced open
...

Over the cobbles they scuttle
Through narrow winding lanes
In fairytale city
These multi-tongued tourist beetles
...

The hesitant phonecall from the callbox across the road
The gloomy stairwell and lift
The setting sun picking out the backs of old sandstone buildings
Glimpsed through the window
...

Newsreels
Of trains doggedly ploughing through feet-high drifts of snow
Of lorries and cars snowed up in blizzards
Abandoned
...

Not beautiful
In a conventional sense.
The dark hair
That becomes matted easily
...

Echoing
The myriad swallows
Perched like notes on a music sheet
On telegraph wires overhead
...

To passengers on the train
The city exposes its dirty backside

Flashing
...