Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Park

Susan Wilson

The fruit of perfection grows beyond my window

where expert shots are aimed into shoots of greenery.

It’s a fertile audience of hundreds, even thousands

as I rehearse my thoughts for imaginary faces.

For many years the cracked, black metal railings

have been the barrier guarding Millfields Park

but now they’ve been exchanged for golden rocks,

each railing drawn out slowly, without anaesthetic,

the sockets sighing with relief, whispering opportunity.

Attitudes such as metal are hard to bend whereas

rock can be chiselled into a pebble of a view.

Like you, I am an instrument of unique design,

gifted to translate horizontal lines into fencing

hung with tears of joy or bled with clots of pain –

expressions such as these are ours to be shared.

A series of notes rearranged may sound the same

and will continue to win the same criticism

that uses personality to oil a mechanism of rejection.

My hands are wringing with its grease.

As yet the sound of my little triangle is hammered

by an orchestra of talented and polished cymbals

but between the rocks that share their hue

I could slip not just one phrase of my choosing

but an entire symphony, before I leave the park.

Published in Issue No. 12, Somnia et Charta, October 1st, 2025.

Susan Wilson lives in East London and began writing poetry following the death of her mother in 2017. Her poems have been published by Lucy Writers, Snakeskin, Runcible Spoon, Dreich, Areopagus, Streetcake, Rue Scribe, Amethyst Review, Lothlorien, The Candyman’s Trumpet and 100subtexts. Her debut chapbook is “I Couldn’t Write to Save Her Life” (Dreich, 2021). More recently her artwork has been published by Inspirational Art Magazine.