I found God in Vermillion House
a glittering brutalist council tower
totemic on the horizon
He was loitering in the stairwell
and stank of piss and PineFresh
glittering with tin
the tinkling sound of empties
strung out in the morning breeze
forewarned of his divine and glittering presence
and decorated these concrete angles
with infinite glittering space-time
and celebration cake on lace
the glittering tinkling filling my head
with clear water and ice;
my thirst was quenched.
Today is a new day and the longest
of the year
standing on the balcony fifty-two floors up
humming the glittering sun in
hands empty, the photographs of home dropped in dry Libyan cells
just the glittering of fire sparks
everywhere I look
igniting paper in old books
which tell of milk and glittering honey for those chosen again and again
extolling what makes one life grievable and another’s not-
when the glittering truth unravels beyond sea-burial
and in the surviving speeches
of primary school teachers
hanging in mildewed classrooms
like small glittering triumphs
and in the making of tea in battered
glittering pots from Baghdad
to warm the elderly neighbour from Broadstairs
and in the pile of glittering cellophane -wrapped flowers seen from this window
not in those subterranean glittering gold dens
of numbers and rank and numbness
not in my glittering name…
Come here, God, take a look
at this view