On the hundred-mile drive home there’s no word
searches, no knock knock and we don’t wink codes
or decipher the replies from the other secret agents.
The rain-slick wheels rasp, we barely even make it
past the spider web of Albert Bridge before
sleep snares us. So we don’t hear Dad say something
about Nan, we don’t see Mum nod, then turn and look
back at us and nudge him or, maybe, squeeze his hand.
We miss it when his eyes make crow’s feet in the rear view.
Our heads loll, minds falling through the final few thought
fragments, coming loose into the No-Time of oblivion,
where a minute is no different from fourteen billion years.
Drugged by the oven-fug cycled through eight little lungs
our fog breath condenses on the cold glass to bring back ghosts
of noughts and crosses; drawn and then forgotten.
We’ve no clue Dad steers us through incubated un-time,
suspended by the engine-rumble lullaby as mum keeps watch,
the white lines dash dashing, swallowed under us. The lampposts
blinking back the dark above. The first thing I know
since London is being hatched from the van’s time-capsule
into air so crisp it cleans your skin. I knuckle an eye
at the sky’s black photographic paper, my sight developing
more stars the longer it rests in blank patches.
Ever-tinier flecks of light, magicked out of nothing.
Andy Craven-Griffiths
Andy has performed extensively on-stage (Glastonbury, Latitude, BAC) but had work broadcast (Radio 1, Radio 4, BBC 2), and published. He has worked for Arts Council England, British Council, Rethink Mental Health, First Story, The Letterbox Club and has a chapter in ‘Making Poetry Happen’ (Bloomsbury, 2015). Andy is Lead Writer on various children’s writing projects, and part of the Midnight Run team (themnr.com). He is also working part-time on a PhD in Creative Writing.
Andy is lead singer/rapper with his band Middleman. The band has toured widely, from Reading Festival to SXSW, Texas, and has broadcast live sessions for Radio 1, 6 Music and XFM. The band’s music has been widely synchronized.
Andy’s website: http://andypoetry.com
