spoken version of one of my poems.

Bubbles of reality

So here I am, a front-row seat
in Amsterdam, a cool-jazz beat
Modern Jazz Quartet they’re called
It’s ’57. Urbane. Sweet.

Chamber music’s Modern Age,
John Lewis piano-playing sage.
Lost in music’s interplay
my seat jerks roughly towards the stage.

My earplugs and my iPod fall
I realise I’m not there at all
but on a bus with windows fogged
and in Japan I now recall.

It’s hot in here but not outside
Commuters sleep all through the ride
We pass Himeji Castle, snow,
My reverie’s abruptly died.

I wonder if I’m really here
an Alien Resident for a year
or back at Home still sound asleep
alarm about to ring out clear…

And so it goes, banality,
the bubbles of reality
like Russian dolls each bubble pops
I doubt my person-ality.

And when I die will I be less
than all a bubble can compress?
And will the final burst reveal
a mere sphere of nothingness?

from Original Clichés, Rob Walker 2016.
https://www.amazon.com/Original-Cliches-Rob-Walker/dp/1760411272
(Text ©, 2016)