through breathing borosilicate on the Southwestern railway
i sat scarred by England’s misty hills and
the blue and humble aerosphere
whose clouds opened up slowly to reveal
cold and silver rays that looked like the deepest of all retinas
staring at me, and asking ‘who is your saviour, and who is he saving you from—
the dream, the depths, or the dark or the—’
—oh, it’s my station! where’s that old ticket?
National Rail, orange and yellow, kinda like cardstock
that old sort of heat-embossed computer font—ah! through the doors and the gates and…
at some platform ‘round Clapham Junction, the round trip transfer didn’t hold
and all that perfection came clear to me a lie.
because they tell me i’m amazing, oh i have so much faith
and they tell me i love her and they tell me i pray
but i know i’m an imposter, and despite the lustre and the lenses
and all the rosy eyes of my sweetest of all satellites
when it’s just me and the Lord in the dark insides
of four red brick walls rallying round Fairholme Road
somewhere, West Kensington, or Hammersmith, i don’t know
where once i found the dream and knew it beloved and deep
and held it once, in some foggy old lowland valleys and farms
and the place where the cliffs drop chalk lines into the channel
no, that night, in that special place, i knew it at once lost,
—not gone, necessarily, but real, now—
for i had stared too deep into the face of evil itself
and gave up at once on my will to the dream
knowing it’d be so hard and never quite as rosy
as when my mind and my eyes drew so close to the light
on the hill in North London. oh, some sense of body-mind synchronicity
of total and treacherous and tumultuous knowledge
that it might be true. that i wanted it to be true
i want it so, so, badly to be true
for i had the stars in me, and the sight too
and i knew it got so much better—
—oh, you know, i just remembered. my baptism is scheduled for next Easter.
to get there, i’ll take the District from Baron’s Court east to Victoria
then the staggered Southern service local for Gatwick Airport
to the air above the Atlantic and old England down below
with a transfer in St John’s, and some lovely Newfoundlanders
until i’m back in my cathedral
and it should get better then–
but that one night, which felt like a week, in the face of an English God
and cold foggy air that might as well have been God
yeah, he looked at me through the heavy brick and knew me a fallen son,
who doubts and just cannot believe.
some men need inspiration, and others just need to be scared
and i ought to be scared, because
it seems all Central London ain’t enough for me, man
i ought to say goodbye to those stories of empire,
all these guiding ghosts—so i raise them a toast
and sing them away through a bottle or two
and they float and disperse into the sky, leaving
me spiritless in the dewy grass of Hampstead Heath
and i don’t care anymore when the last Overground is.
because i remembered how i buried the Dream here
in this wet and damp and sticky British mud. oh, i remember how she cried
and cried and cried and cried
and with her very last breath, knowing the world had left her
into my hands she commended her spirit
and with a whisper that was a remnant from before i could sit with my anger
she anointed the honour of my years
and the chance to live without a dream
or to try regardless, and to believe in it regardless
even when we know it to be false… ‘oh,
what have we left but to wait?’ she told me!
in the pews before her altar, i folded the kneeling bench down
and stared her down. HELP ME SEE YOU.
but nothing came, and my skin rattled with the floorboards
until my chest, some seconds superseding the sursum corda,
whispered old words like ‘Lord, I am not worthy’
and knashed some teeth to the tone of ‘my fault, my fault, oh, my most grievous fault’
she’s there, then, for thirty whole minutes,
then lost, and found, again, and again
and then i was inspired and then lost and then inspired and then lost
for all that i try, i get to see no payoff
and watch my sundays get stifling. yeah, the cycle is too grey
i miss when i were free, man, when they called me heir to the shipyards
yeah, i miss when i actually could miss them. you know?
and when what i made meant something. but no,
something died in me on Fairholme Road.
way, way back in West London—oy, the Piccadilly’s down again
these bloody Tube strikes. so onto the Elizabeth then,
and the District east from Ealing
watching the British class system oscillate through the doors,
‘i wanna sleep with common people,’ yeah, i know that song
but posh to prole to presumptuous Canadian—op, here’s Ravenscourt Park, and i’m…
…down to Hammersmith, or West Kensington? i don’t fucking know!
ain’t no National Rail cards here, this, mate, is plain cash!
nine pound or so, what, eighteen Canadian? god! i ain’t cut out for this country
ought to find a Boots for my Holy Communion
or something to set my mind straight
but i was never like this last time, back on the hill
didn’t need no methylphenidate back then. i was free, man—
and with that admission, the Heath starts to shake
and the Dream swirls and shimmers like rays skipping the waves of the Atlantic
all the way to my ears and my heart and my sorry eyes
craned against a precarious pew
and she says, at once, to my trembling temple
with the conviction of a heavenly sailor
and the old English tendency to bite and to sear
as the magic is drained, and the papers are signed
for one last divorce, whose sweet song sings, at last:
‘I AM DEAD TO YOU.’

and then England rolls on
into the sunny sunday afternoon
and come the green chalk downs
and the little thatched pubs
way past the fountains in the park
down by the Embankment
ah, it’s my first friend there!
sipping her six-pound latte
and me, a six-pound 99p flake—
—one of us got a shit deal
and i can’t tell who—
saying simple sweet things
like ‘don’t you miss our year?’
and ‘i miss all of you.
i wonder what it’d have been like
if we all stayed together’
is all of you, me?
i can never tell
if you can even stand me
but you say you do
you know me well enough
to know the imposter
because you saw that
first year. when all of us
were alone
and yet you’re here
and i will never understand why.
then come the slight giggles
and slight guilt
for me leaving you
and you leaving me
and remembering that
long night next to the
brown moving boxes
so far from our prairies
but its okay. we’re here now
for sixty whole minutes
seems we can always find each other
for minutes at a time
in Toronto
New York
or London
cities we will never call ours
and i wanted to hold her.
because i was so scared
and pushing down the
fallen angels of Fairholme Road
terrorising my mind
while smiling, though i wanted her help
but i could have never told her
what madness was in my head
that day, only that she quieted it
for sixty whole minutes
before i embarked on
my pilgrimage into
the cleansing fires
i wonder if she knows
how much i changed—
well, she’s watched me
change before, but i
didn’t think she’d
be here again—
and that she was the last person
to see me as i was
before i burned the dream
and chose to see
as well as believe
but if i see and believe
i might as well lose
my eyes—eyes, i tell you
how i got some peace
in her cerulean eyes
as i watched the oak leaves
brush her soft skin
and the wind whisp her
tender threads of milky blonde through
ecumenical rays of gold
that formed a rope back to shore
up the pebble beaches
and the steel wire steps
pass the mud cleaning station
and the National Trust plantation
and the long and windy walk
along those familiar chalky cliffs
where i knew i loved England.
it showed me
to try once, means
you can try again—
in some other city
i’d make up in my mind—

and then i know, i just know
i’ve just gotta find it again.