Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.

I rest my head for a moment on the cool concrete wall 

of the art gallery and in its undulations I can feel the past

trying to break out of its unexpected vertical tomb. 

I could rub the back of my head into one of the grooves,

wear it away, erode it imperceptibly over a day’s aeon until

I could place my head right back into the crevasse, 

a temporary sarcophagus, an extra heavy-duty crash helmet.

This of course might be an over-reaction to the images 

I’ve just seen: a world melting, gangsters wearing dresses 

and razor’d scars of silver stars, lakes of petrol waiting for

paper boats to be sailed upon them, as if Neptune had 

said yes to a sponsorship deal from [insert oil company name 

here] but only lately realised that the proposed replacement for

a rapidly drying Aral Sea might not have been everything

promised in the brochure. Caveat emptor, as we all should have 

said in 1764 when Hargreaves spun Jenny, but how could any

of us know that coal + steam would equal not just movement

but the end? I might stay in here, it keeps my head cool.