Off-Cuts (Poetry)

I shut my eyes — the pictures come
unbidden they arrive
the people in them all unknowns
made up, perhaps alive
I’ve no idea and no control
the stories are not mine
whatever history unfolds
I’ve no way to define

Do I somehow intercept them
like a play transmitted wide
to an audience that’s scattered
random screenings, cast untried?
they wander through like vagrants
not belonging to a script
the dialogue sounds foreign
now the microphone has dipped

into some weird dimension
where colours run and blend
a thousand different meanings
that fade out before the end

I’m left not one whit wiser
and fear it’s all a sham
so little sense — the vision slides
I edit what I can ...

        Take such cuttings one by one
        and splice them to a tree
        nurture each unlikely dream
        for possibility