Thorpe Park

Is it because we are potted plants in Acacia Gardens,
a little green lung on the manicured streets,
when what churns, core-deep, is molten desire,
the lion-loud dark of wildebeest and veldt?
Is this what drives the theme at Thorpe Park:
the gut-wrenching rides of “SAW”, “Colossus” and “Nemesis Inferno”?
That stomach-pit haul and thrust of corkscrew madness,
clunk and gust of everything spun into oneness,
the serenity of annihilation when now is all or nothing.

I've adapted to this roller coaster. Life's little cart,
chain-pulled into position then accelerating,
through the nursery and spilled down the school-corridor,
shunting and jolting through familial swerves,
to the apex of love and floating free of cares
before plummeting on the down-draft of disillusion,
breathless and panting up expectation's thrilling groove
only to spill again and again on the turning waves-
cresting and burning on the sparks of our rails.

All my loves, your faces sublime at momentary peaks,
let me caress our balancing instant, pause to touch
the sky cradling your cheeks and wind-washed hair
before we descend into rushing hours, on-the-turn,
bottoming-out of a strained ephemeral intensity,
aligning to the drag of chains, contained, shrunk.
Gravity is mortgaged bricks and mortar; sleepless nights
and nappy-filled bins; a tired bedroom's cold-shoulder -
until we rise again, weightless and alive to each other.