THE UNDERGROUND

Mark Allinson — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:01:19 +0000

In the 70s, in London, I lived for a while

In an old, cramped, single-bed room

Above the underground Central line.

Lying in the dark I could feel below

As the tunnel filled with passing strangers

Being carried home from a long day:

A faint rumble would grow till it quivered

Then shook the narrow bed like a tremor,

Blurring figures on the digital clock,

Jangling wire hangers in the closet,

Buzzing pill-bottles on the table.

And I thought of that cold, dark river

Of air below being pushed out ahead

Of the train, and manholes breathing out

That earthy, sour, underground odor

Into Soho alleys, as the rattling

Carriages clattered through echoing space

In the tunnel, down there, beneath my bed.

Some nights, awake in the early hours,

Long since the last train had passed,

I could still sense this dark space

Below the foundations of the old building,

Waiting under tons of earth and rock:

Nitre crusting the blackened walls;

Scrabble, plash and scuffle of rats.

And even now, thirty years later,

Living on the other side of the world

In a quiet country town by the sea,

Sometimes, sleepless in bed, I feel

The dark tunnel still below,

Echoing drips through an unlit night,

Waiting to carry more passengers home.

NOCTIFIERS

Mark Allinson — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:01:37 +0000

Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.

—C.G. Jung

The liberating angels stand
With faces flushed by light;
A wise, a pure, a righteous band
Who clearly see what’s right.

But as they crowd the cheering fire
To celebrate the glow
Of standing tall and reaching higher,
Their low dark shadows grow.