Coming from a village in Scotland I find it very unnerving to be in a city where nobody engages with each other as human beings. One such occasion of startling disconnection was while hitch-hiking from Edinburgh to Germany and finding myself in central London, desperate for some human eyes to meet mine, for a smile or some sign that I was not living the hallucination of a brain in a jar…
London
In London,
Glances slide
Unheld
Held away
With stiffness
Eyes flick
But never lock
Each member
Atomised
Or bonded.
I feel a lonely
Free radical
Skipping
The runnels
That others run by.
But how long before
I cease to see
The bundle lain
Or tall white crane
And scurry
Or coast
From den to post.
This then is how
London gorged
On native wealth
By not looking
Eyes locked
On some other horizon.
Joe Blogs, 2018