Ballad

It is the hour of waking alone.

A jet is unzipping the sky.

Boxwood hedges await me

And watch my feet go by.

The pines are hiding their scent

With the privet for tonight.

They hold no interest this morning,

Enervated by so much light.

The dead grocer is still alive,

Surly, serving in the shop,

Henpecked in a biscuit coat

At the parade where buses stop.

Joan Gentle is near me now,

Worth marrying just for the name.

She often gets on the sixteen,

But she is dead just the same.

Two girls linking arms as always

On the path by the flower bed

Will never get to hear about TaTu,

Aids or crack, because they’re dead.

The conductor with nothing to say

Still hears the sister squeal

“That’s my brother, that’s my brother!”

He too has passed under the wheel.

Maisie of the hot pants is a zombie

In the kiosk selling cigarettes

And I will buy twenty Players

And inhale without any regrets. 

There’s where Vicky lives over the shop.

She cuts hair and makes mothers blonde.

They still share tea and drink gossip

Even though they’re beyond the beyond.

Their blueprints are filed under gone

Missing, and presumed unknown.

Although we are dead, we’re alive -

All in the hour of waking alone.

--
Stephen Moran
From Last Night's Dream Corrected and Day of the Flying Leaves

(Edited, updated June 2022, May 2023)