The Red-Eye

The Red-Eye
4am: The birds are out.
- And the early businessmen.
Check-in: We jostle in lines like wind blown suits
Flapping to beat each other at queuing.
Caffeine: A dose I hope will kick me up
Before I meet the client's dream team.
Sunrise: Spreads red light like a sore
And rubs the blood specks in my eyes.
I have a set of documents that I should read
But can't face. Failure presses against my brow
Like a car crash in waiting.
But once, alone in a car park at Heathrow,
A silent 747 strummed the fences like guitar strings
And threw down at me a whirlwind
Like the breath of another world.
Oct 03