Poem

Grid System

Cars – silver beads
shoot in all directions,
like mercury

from a broken thermometer,
or bullets from an AK-47
intent on nothing but their target.

All day and night this city moves,
while I hover
like a needle on a compass,

striving to find True North.
Milton Keynes is a well-oiled machine,
the roundabouts its cogs.

Cars drop off obediently
at the right exits,
and go on their way. The Grid System

means nothing to me. H9, V10
unfinished equations.
The roads stretch on forever,

with little to distinguish
one from another.
There is never silence,

only the incessant
rushing of the cars.
If I could,

I would make my own Grid System,
and like the travellers of old,
plot the position of the stars.

Alex Toms
Colchester, United Kingdom

Alex Toms, 32, lives in Milton Keynes with her 8 year-old son who is an expert on penguins. She likes to pretend her bedroom is really a Parisian garret, and languishes there reading poetry. She has been published in 'Monkey Kettle' and has a poem forthcoming in 'Writers' Forum'.

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