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if only i'd won this last week, we could have gone for Haaland...

it was submitted for a rhyming contest - i wrote it (or tried to) in the style of the librarian and poet Philip Larkin.
the picture is a section of Jackson Pollock’s workshop floor…



A Pollock, on the Interchange
After Philip Larkin (1922-1985)

The morning traffic slows. The rush is paused
and dammed across all six converging lanes.
We jostle in slow motion, what has caused
the holdup is unknown. A child complains

before a grand commotion steals its breath
with swirling lights and, like a circus ad –
“Roll-up, Roll-up! See Mankind Flirt with Death!” –
the sirens’ seesaw trumpets. Then, our sad

reflection that a stranger may be hurt,
transformed: a Pollock, on the interchange.
(But up ahead there’s movement, cars divert,
and conga lines of traffic rearrange.)

It’s not too long before time uncongeals
and off we creep, delayed but not destroyed.
When crawling past ‘The Spot’ it never feels
our right to be ungracious, or annoyed

“A motorcycle, see? They never learn...”
as distance grows. The radio and me,
immune; ten billion fossil creatures burn
but we remain – alive, and fancy free.