THE CYBER DEAD
‘Knock-knock-knockin’ on Heaven’s door,’ a busker
began to sing near to the ice cream kiosk,
just after I had left the public toilet,
its adamantine urinals made
in Burnley. I walked beneath the lime trees,
along the embankment. The brown river
swirled in spate, high with rains from the remnants
of Atlantic storms breaking on shorn
and distant mountains. I thought of those dead friends –
their social media accounts intestate –
forever alive, and orbiting
eternally in cyber space, so close
yet still and always forlornly ‘Knock-knock-
knockin’ on Heaven’s door’.
John HUDDART
December 31, 2025Such a rich cornucopia of reference and description. Oh, to walk in England with you daily!