North Atlantic Tracks (Eastbound)

Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:

Time is on the wing
but  he doesn’t seem to like it
as he paces up and down the aisle
worried about flying perhaps or deep thrombosis
until a stewardess makes him take his seat again.

My watch is turning backwards (if only it would)
in a dim corridor of figures in rugs
(like one of Moore’s bomb shelters)
mostly sleeping     or lost in earphones
hearing tiny voices from elsewhere
in the hiss and rumble of stationary motion.

We are elsewhere with a vengeance
but other voices trail us ­– the
Oceanic Controllers. Up here in the cold
in communal anonymous gloom
we float alone in a net of whispers
wrapped in air we cannot breathe.

© Roderick Watson