Issue 10: June 2005

Luke Heeley | Alan Jenkins | Barbara Marsh | Niall O'Sullivan | Eamonn Shanahan | Jean Sprackland | Todd Swift

NIALL O'SULLIVAN

The Limit

300ft above the Hanger Lane gyratory,
a police helicopter breaches the cusp of its jurisdiction
and sweeps from the sunset to the dusk
towards the crowded towers of the South Acton Estate.

The engine's growl seeps into the bedroom
of my brother's Acton flat,
I hate that sound, he says to me
as he changes baby Ossian.
Makes it feel like a police state.

I tell him about a police chase show
I saw on TV, how those choppers are kitted out
with infa red heat seeking cameras
if one ever hooks onto you
the best thing to do is to keep running,
jump garden fences, kick guard dogs in the face,
ignore the shreds that rose bushes rip from your skin,
use one way systems to your advantage
make that high risk sprint across the motorway,
keep zigzagging 'til that chopper runs out of fuel,
only then is it safe to hide and form your strategy.

Still, you could never escape that low hum
and the message it broadcasts into every living room,
which means nothing to baby Ossian,
four weeks on this earth and enchanted
by black paper shapes blu-tacced to the wall.
Let his happy monosyllables bless us all,
it's still a while until he tests the vanity
of a newly minted tooth against
the rude geometry of a wooden block.
Let us keep our minds away from the skies until then.