What you are

you are the cat's paw
 among the silence of midnight goldfish

you are the waves
 which cover my feet like cold eiderdowns

you are the teddybear (as good as new)
 found beside a road accident

you are the lost day
 in the life of a child murderer

you are the underwatertree
 around which fish swirl like leaves

you are the green
 whose depths I cannot fathom

you are the clean sword
 that slaughtered the first innocent

you are the blind mirror
 before the curtains are drawn back

you are the drop of dew on a petal
 before the clouds weep blood

you are the sweetfresh grass that goes sour
 and rots beneath children's feet

you are the rubber glove
 dreading the surgeon's brutal hand

you are the wind caught on barbedwire
 and crying out against war

you are the moth
 entangled in a crown of thorns

 you are the apple for teacher
 left in a damp cloakroom

you are the smallpox injection
 glowing on the torchsinger's arm like a swastika

you are the litmus leaves
 quivering on the suntan trees

you are the ivy
 which muffles my walls

you are the first footprints in the sand
 on bankholiday morning

you are the suitcase full of limbs
 waiting in a leftluggage office
 to be collected like an orphan

you are a derelict canal
 where the tincans whilst no tunes

you are the bleakness of winter before the cuckoo
 catching its feathers on a thornbush
 heralded spring

you are the stillness of Van Gogh
 before he painted the yellow vortex of his last sun 

you are the still grandeur of the Lusitania
 before she tripped over the torpedo
 and laid a world war of american dead
 at the foot of the blarneystone

you are the distance
 between Hiroshima and Calvary
 measured in mother's kisses

you are the distance
 between the accident and the telephone box
 measured in heartbeats

you are the distance
 between power and politicians
 measured in half-masts

you are the distance
 between advertising and neuroses
 measured in phallic symbols

you are the distance
 between you and me
 measured in tears

you are the moment
 before the noose clenched its fist
 and the innocent man cried: treason

you are the moment
 before the warbooks in the public library
 turned into frogs and croaked khaki obscenities

you are the moment
 before the buildings turned into flesh
 and windows closed their eyes

you are the moment
 before the railwaystations burst into tears
 and the bookstalls picked their noses

you are the moment
 before the buspeople turned into teeth
 and chewed the inspector
 for no other reason than he was doing his duty

you are the moment
 before the flowers turned into plastic and melted
 in the heat of the burning cities

you are the moment
 before the blindman puts on his dark glasses

you are the moment
 before the subconscious begged to be left in peace



you are the moment
 before the world was made flesh

you are the moment
 before the clouds became locomotives
 and hurtled headlong into the sun

you are the moment
 before the spotlight moving across the darkened stage
 like a crab finds the singer

you are the moment
 before the seed nestles in the womb

 you are the moment
 before the clocks had nervous breakdowns
 and refused to keep pace with man's madness

you are the moment
 before the cattle were herded together like men

you are the moment
 before God forgot His lines

you are the moment of pride
 before the fiftieth bead

you are the moment
 before the poem passed peacefully away at dawn
 like a monarch

 (Roger McGough)