Surge

Surge – the word that whistles through the air,
A rolling, crawling pulse that rides the tide.
On Thames‑bank nights the water swells, a tide‑swept sigh,
Turning quiet harbour reeds into canvases of white and blue.

It’s in the throes of a grand ballet of rope and wind,
When ships tall‑mast their destiny against the caprice of the sea,
They feel that rush – the surge that makes the deck rise,
Like an old‑fashioned brass band trumpeting in unison.

And not only the water: the surge trembles in the street,
Electricity that arcs and gapes through copperled veins,
A flash of white‑hot brilliance that turns a lamp,
Hush a knick‑knack, an old tea cosy, to glow amber in the dark.

What about the surge of feeling, that fleeting, soaring wave,
A wave that lifts a spectator's heart right over New York’s skyline,
Yet drummed in the dusky corridors of the city’s heart –
A memory, a waltz in memory, a flicker of un‑spent age.

There is a surge at 8 a.m., the first line packs the train,
The hiss of packed carriages, the hiss of all the souls in the tunnels,
They press the lungs, the share of the breath, the sense that all that beats,
All that goes into the track, into the rhythm of the city, bridges firelight.

From spray to longing, from electric current to raw heat,
There is a surge everywhere – a V, a swelling at the ear,
It trips the mind – rewiring the old, rewiring the blue,
The surge ('s) a relentless hymn that tells us, we are still alive.

So let the surge, all its colours and every ripple, long as it is, let it recall, That flounces the unseen, the ones that pulses, the waves, the air — it's a surge at a time, a perpetual ripce.