Just round from the shop

I'm told it's good to look up at the buildings you blunder past every day on your way to god-knows-where. That often some architectural surprise awaits you near the corner or just round from the shop.

But I'm not sure that if I ever get to god-knows-where, having enjoyed such a diversion, I'll be any better equipped to return.

At Least One

I'm told they turn inside you
Ticking out their time;
These cogs within cogs
Are forever untuned,
I'm told.

But I see at least one cog
Up there too,
In the big old sky,
That is forever
And perfectly
In tune.

Elsewhere

The woman was like a tide
Of silk and tendril arms,
Washing forward then back then forward
To the last bus driver.

He sat serenely ten-to-twoing his wheel,
Eyes straight, feet splayed,
Easing the old bird into neutral.

She called within inches of his face
For directions to a street he didn't,
It turned out, know.

So idle in Alexandria we sunk
While she didn't know why he didn't know
What she thought she knew he should have known.
An interchange.

I looked out at warehouse walls,
Empty corners slicked with night,
At black traffic swelling and
Subsiding beyond view,
And chanced
That that was all that could take her
From this farcical confinement -
Theatre of the 370 -
When, waving away any pathos,
She surged forward, tripped on one step,
Hurdled another, and finally found
Her audience among the elsewhere.

In short

It must not be a declaration.
Yet it may,
On occasion,
Be
One
Sixth of one.

It may not, in any event,
Forsake
Purely
For argument's sake,
Firmness or unfuzziness or
Freedom from flimsy
Linguistic games
(that everbody loathes).

In short: