The M25
written by: Elizabeth Barton
Spoiling to get into the fray
I couldn’t wait to get onto the motorway.
I was a banshee hellcat on wheels,
straining to peel off the slipway
with hell in hot chase on my heels.
Cars streamed by, a remorseless din,
flaming, rushing, angry red,
spewed out like sparks, a satanic cortege.
Under every engine, seething djinn
toiled and writhed to get some air.
One lone driver blazed across six lanes
burned in a clamour of swearing and horns.
How many hearts missed a beat
in that one feat? How many seconds
from frantic lives were shorn?
He took the turn almost too late,
yet Fate smiled on the rough gravel
and Fortune glossed over the foolish risk
as he dodged cones and scattered stones;
it was a spectacle I could not forget.
I was revelling in the thick of it;
six lanes, wedged in by two immense red
juggernauts clattering either side,
furious like the famous chariot race,
insistent throttle, devouring the road.
Scorching red, like Satan’s cloak
trying to smother me, the sun danced
on chromium, flashed in the blur
of speed; but it is a hell I much prefer
to the rictus smiles of wedding photographs.
The best insights inform one’s mind
when driving on the motorway; thought matters
not one jot, where nerve out-flies thought in the fray;
the brain rides the ribbon of instinctive grit,
memory and reason vie to cast their lot.
It dawned on me, between the lines
of lanes converging the catty bitcherade
as suits queued up in the ribboned motorcade;
this has happened all before;
the scene was the same, but ancient.
On a stele, in a wall somewhere
‘twixt Nile and reed, the rising Pleiades,
my effigy was scratched out in a frenzy;
and Murder probably signed his name
among the stone faces in the motorcade.
- The M25 - June 9, 2025
- The Red Knight - March 11, 2025
- Find the Magic Wherever You Are - November 3, 2024
