‘There’s a man with a bomb

somewhere on the train.’     Even

swallows of the city sent from

their flight        with all the

commuters of late-afternoon

locked-down & out

           from these vestigial hours.
No-one joins the dots iPhones notwithstanding a

technical they say malfunction only

immobilized at the red-lights    so close to

the stopping-point of this long        long    way

        home.

             No-one warned it could end like this

a maddie running loose crank-spanner

in the works chased down through the

tunnel of tin-houses by a SWAT team

of 8 running semi-automatic weapons

         their marksmen sweating along behind.
Same as the movies it is the guns who star.

There oughtto be lights & camera     hi-fi

surround        we are

mere extras    to the main gig

tomato-sauce on our faces     war-paint for

unwaged foot-soldiers.

             Afterwards the cops take all our details

as if intending surprise gifts sent to our front doors.

Not saying       not risking the identity of the Great

Conspirator who takes it all away.     Dead

or alive now    in the phantom world?

               Sirens without smoke     birds

taken to smog-rings    high above the melée

ambulance  bomb-squad  paramedic

more jobless than their prime-time stand-ins would be.
Another day    in another place

                body-parts thrown         aleatoric

        across the tracks.

Food for a thousand cameras;

            the hunger eyes behind them.