Silhoutte On A Staircase In Swindon Poem by Paul Archer

Dark suddenly, the day's circulation choked off.
Dizzy carlights, a wipered transparent
Half-moon dissolves.

Traffic news cuts in,
Up ahead, tail-lights flash red,
My foot swivels, pushes down.

Side-on to the M4 lanes:
A column of light, on the stair's corkscrew
A grey-carpeted soul, a silhoutte, female -

The angled skirt - stalking the dead air,
The discrete air, for a quiet exit?
Heading to a cabal of schemers?

A gasp in the wave spew,
The majestic turning over, the cascade
Down a rocky cleft, the office-recklessness

Of not taking the elevator, the bloody-minded
Loneness. False. False. Nothing
For the silhoutte, the shadow on the sheet,

Not a penny from the treasure-house
For her who'll plump up the pillows of the sick
Who die 'not wanting to make any fuss'.

The radio's music resumes,
White lights in spikes of rain,
Foot eases the brake,

O, Pangloss: pity her and me as I roll along
Between dashed lines and she swerves
Down a column of light in the building's side.