Anomaly

“The old home town just looks the same”,
I’m happy to tell you – excepting, that is,
your mural. It’s somehow *evolved*. Over night,
it’s said. Your masterwork’s not what it was.

Instead of that quizzical face, there’s this vortex.
Hypnotic thumbprint throbbing through the wall.
Your suit survives. Amazed, a pair of ears,
perhaps tuned into heaven, or the soundtrack from hell –

who knows? Bemused, of course, I stepped
a touch closer and peered like a speculant tourist.
At once the thing hummed into life! How it *whirred*;
I felt my cowardice wisely reassert itself...

It wasn’t the happiest homecoming. Off
I shot, retreating from my waking dream,
bricking up the vision that I’d seen. Our town:
“like a derelict man who has died out of shame...”

(With apologies to Jarvis Cocker)