Poem 23/09/2010 (This Portal)

This portal from one town to
another, from one culture to
another shouldn't be a faceless
car on a neglected road

a worm-hole in a plastic world
a black hole, a stargate, a
manoeuvre shouldn't kiss our cities
like a timeless trance

A Facebook page, a cure for Cancer
we shouldn't be neglected like this;
a shortage of housing, a reflection in a
television screen

We should say bom dia, bon voyage
a handshake here a pat on the back, a
caress, a hug and eyes that
met across heated floors

should wend their way back to television
screens, for this, 25 minutes to Solihull
by a route that seems never invented
is the blink of an eye in a Sat Nav

screen that decries the woodland that
I pass in flurries, the poverty and drugs
and illness that is measured digitally
symbiotically, economically.

This portal is faster still, a land
my home that I do not recognise
buildings empty, half built
like a friend, misanthropically

You'd rather forget