Heroes OR Imagination, a (Free) Ticket to Ride

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Now, I  dare say we are all heroes, each in our own way, if only for just for getting on with the business of everyday living. 

We all need heroes to inspire us, and where we can’t find any to tick our particular boxes, the chances are we'll invent them.

HEROES or  IMAGINATION, A (FREE) TICKET TO RIDE

Every morning I’d watch them

run for the train,

catch it with seconds to spare

then relax in my seat,

wondering just who they were

and if they were lovers

or friends, maybe neighbours

but, no, there was more

to the way they ran for the train

than met the eye,

the reason why easy to tell

because their faces

were alive, not like those others

I saw every morning

on the 6.15 to a bread factory

that could even have given

bodies in a mortuary a good run

for their money

Always late, never out of breath,

leaping aboard,

straight into fantasies I’d weave

around them;

no ordinary pair (yes, definitely

a pair, I was sure)

they would be living the high life,

burning the candle

at both ends, night after night,

(so always late)

then they’d fall into bed, take sex

for a heady trip…

heading for the surreal, shades

of a looking-glass war

while ordinary folks like me just

don’t have the bottle

(or the money) it takes for drugs

so we’ll play safe

Divine looks, designer gear, it was

too much to bear

each morning on the way to work

where I don’t want to be

so all the more reason to enjoy

my little fantasy…

about heroes of the 6.15 who were

always late,

their brief (like gods) to make

their own fate,

have the world turn on such beauty

it did not deserve,

making an open declaration of sorts

about a politics of heart,

body and soul that even the worst

of temporal measures

fail to have put down, rogue traders

going for the jugular

One day, they just missed the train;

no heroes after all, only human

[From: On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]