Dunton
Green
by
Michael
Conaghan
Email: jane@hardy91.fsnet.co.uk
The world's gone to hell in a handbasket
I mutter
it constantly these days
A maleficent
mantra that sometimes
Slips
out above the breath.
The
world's gone...
To Hell.
Under war-darkened skies
The
train pulled in to Dunton Green.
A carriage
voyeur, I watched a weepy couple
Half
make up.
Don't
let them make you think you're weak.
In a
handbasket.
Dunton
Green conceals itself
Between
Knockholt and Sevenoaks
Deep
in the well of Kent.
From
behind dusty evening windows
I daresay
it looks pretty.
One
would think to find in
Gentle,
rolling countryside
A gentle,
rolling people.
Read
the graffiti.
The
little station house enveloped
In an
ugly cage of vivid spraycan red
Fuck
this and that, but mainly
Fuck
the blacks. They took a week
To paint
it over. White, of course.
Just
because you value peace
The
rain sparks like bullets from the overflow
I stretch
out to the world beyond
To New
York, Afghanistan and Kosovo
