By Hugh McMillan
I imagine in the future
anti-matter
might be delivered
by our Evri driver,
the one with the pony tail
who’s so kind
to old ladies
and has that sticker
Shit Happens
on the back window.
He’ll have
superconducting magnets
and a cooling system
in his Ford Transit
but will still have
to slam the door three
times to get it shut.
I’d continue to get passive
aggressive messages
from my neighbour
(There’s a parcel of anti-protons
here for you Hugh ….)
and how we’d chuckle
when the anti matter
van went over
the potholes,
steering gingerly between
the safety of the road
and a simmering void
of eternal nothingness.
To be honest I’d trust
Evri more with the anti
matter than
the scientists who
make the world daily
less mysterious
and the military
more efficient
at extinguishing all
forms of human life.
If all existence
was suddenly
to end, better
to be at the hands
of a generally
well reviewed driver
called Alistair.
We must Actively Prepare
for War on our Home Soil
(Article in Independent 24/06/25}
I like simple things:
that railway track rusted
but still unbowed
heading north,
those clouds overhead
fat and grey as wood pigeons.
I like feelings too,
love, sorrow, regret,
but I’ve been puzzling all day
over this headline –
‘We must actively prepare
for war on our home soil’ –
and thinking why?
Who would defend soil
but a child with mud-pies?
It is a metaphor, soil,
and spirit and community
and later on, sacrifice,
are just words
we’re made to say.
Presumably the Russians
are coming to take selfies
by the useless nuclear silos,
occupy the empty
bus routes, liberate
the Airbnbs, walk,
poor conscripts from Siberia,
from one familiar
abandoned
village to another,
singing their strange songs
to forlorn birds.
