WHAT YEAR IS IT? by David Erdos - Poem 2 from AT THE GATES

 Poem 2 from AT THE GATES

WHAT YEAR IS IT?

 

 

2020 tattooed. So what is the year we’re now wearing?

2021 doesn’t suit me or occur naturally in the mouth.

 

As I misspoke the year at the end of the previous poem,

A fact that Anthony called to remind me, and my reaction

 

To this provoked doubt as to where I am, unnaturally,

In terms of both place and present. As the days collide

 

And the future that I once imagined through films and books

Has arrived. For we are further than Bladerunner now,

 

Despite lacking its vast ransacked cities, soundtracked

By Vangelis above new noir chasms and a Grand Canyon

 

Crying through a prism of rain, synthesised. But I certainly

Never thought we’d here in a Depraved New World aping

 

Huxley, but without the perception or foresight with which

To forestall doomsday’s tread. Advance has not helped.

 

For the discerning day has drowned in it. And in league

With the sea’s separation we can no longer see the way

 

Through dark water or even tell for the moment,

As to whether or not we are dead. By which I mean

 

Removed from the shore that we first started out from.

As we wade still further out the waves take us

 

And in covering hard, we are warned. Time is strong tide.

Perhaps this is why the name of the year so eluded.

 

I am confused and marked deeply, as we all have been

By the storm and by the whirlpooling real that is carrying

 

So many off in large numbers while we grasp at any

Positives we can notice and any certainties that float free.

 

I look for them now. As the days lose shape,

Sitting’s swimming. I sit and sink beneath oceans

 

Of disparate thought, like cast scree. As with a shipwreck

I’m left for the helicopter to find me. But I can taste the salt

 

As I swallow and I fear the sharks stirred beneath. I cling

Onto meals like small  rafts or flotsam you find on the water.

Last year felt like drowning. Will this one feed Neptune’s

Fleet? In David Lynch’s revived Twin Peaks, Agent Cooper

 

Finally asks Laura Palmer, ‘What year is it?’ As the last line,

So that we may properly see how time folds.  The horror is held

 

At the start and at the end, started over. It’s no wonder

I’m confused. As for numbers, the lost year’s fresh, the new old.

 

And so we wait for the wave to bring us to shore and deliver

A new code and coastline in which if a price has been paid,

 

Nothing’s owed. Mine was a faintly Freudian slip,

So, if I stumble friends, please forgive me. I am opening

 

Myself up to a future in which the events of last year

Fully close. Huxley’s broken doors form my raft,

 

As I castaway, going nowhere. But under the sun,

There’s survival. If they don’t get us first we may float.

 

 

David Erdos January 21st 2021

 

 

For more poems from David Erdos visit The Corona Diaries collection 

David Erdos is an actor, writer, director with over 300 professional credits. He is a published poet, playwright, essayist and illustrator. He has lectured on all disciplines in theatre and film for leading performing arts colleges, schools and universities around the world. His books include EASY VERSES FOR DIFFICULT TIMES, THE SCAR ON THE CLOUD, OIL ON SILVER, NEWS FROM MARS, CHANGING PLACES WITH LIGHT (penniless press) and BYZANTIUM with the photographer Max Reeves. He is a contributing editor for The International Times and maker of documentaries all over the world. David’s work has been acclaimed by many leading figures including Harold Pinter, Heathcote Williams, Alan Moore, Andrew Kotting, Chris Petit and Iain Sinclair in whose recent book THE LAST LONDON, David features. He can be reached at David.erdos@sky.com.

David Erdos

©    David Erdos has asserted his moral rights as author of his work and has full copyright.