Somehow I'm reading poetry at Melbourne Central Station (2006)

Somehow I'm reading poetry at Melbourne Central Station,
somehow I’m reading Pablo Neruda,
despite the fact they’re piping some screeching overwrought Whitney ballad
over the loudspeakers (she’s giving birth in every chorus),
despite all these desk jockeys tied up in suits,
all these ‘ironic’ ringtones (you’d show them irony, Señor Neruda,
oh yes you would with your knowing lover’s fist),
and the auto-announcement calmly advising my train’s been both cancelled and delayed (???);
if I was dead I sure as hell wouldn’t have to deal with this…
would I?
Dig my nose deeper into the spine so the book becomes a shield
(occurs to me that I’m using a sword as a shield)

It pains me, Señor Neruda,
that from your wine-and-thunder songs the world distracts me so –
but look around, can you fucking believe this?
Lend me your transforming eye so I can shift all this
to some semblance of humanity / some disfigurement of love,
this limbo of canned passengers / schooldicks shoving / graveyard announcements –
I’m ready to smash the safety glass, launch the fire alarm,
and yet doggedly, stubbornly, somehow
I'm reading poetry at Melbourne Central Station.