PAUL EDWARDS

REALITIES OF LIGHT

Late evening, about 9.15 on 23 June
it was becoming envelope dark.
Walking down the hall eleven floors up
an intensity of light hit me on the left
-the eastern side. To the west it was thunderously
dark, but there was no rain, and the wind
only lifted very slightly.
It felt as though a rainbow was coming,
but, in the absence of moisture,
this did not seem possible.
I looked to the east, towards love,
and it was truly the case that shadows
of twin tower blocks were extending a mile or two
over deep cubist slabs of colour
that had been caught
on the sides of buildings.
Churches were orange-red,
Canary Wharf less lightly inflamed .
and aircraft were wheeling into the unknown.
There was a rainbow.
It leaked back into itself,
and 20 minutes later had disappeared
like love used to do,
but no more, alas.
Comedians are lost in this festival
because nothing is less certain
than what they had seen and heard.
They are no longer funny
after all these years,
and the rapprochement they
had previously achieved between themselves
and reality no longer had any valency
at a time when light was hissing
into a commencement of sounds
that were emerging from dead envelopes
into an even deadlier environment.
Hush! As darkness gathers itself into a boot;
as sirens and faint clatter of crashes
penetrate ever upwards, its prior images
pull themselves together behind the retina.
There is no moving away
from temporally straining floodlights.
Flares echo tidal warning
as everything changes,
as forays into obeisance
reject colours of the city
and its aroma of sausages
and before night starts up.
No rain farts.