I Wait Here

I wait here, a place where hoods are up
On children, on ledges of former buildings
Where shouting starts and no one calls them down
Where food is delivered by unstable scooters
and they buy gold and sell beauty
From an upstairs salon of brutal concrete

The wet has filled last winter's potholes
Taking the dry of shirtless Sundays,
The dominant light of a meat emporium
What's bought is not owned, generations
Of choices, frozen food, turkey crowns on shelves
Donations paid for by the Kilogram sack

The dark of the sky is here, a dead cat
Doesn't feel the cold, of courting teenagers,
Swearing to each other, disappearing
Down the dirt filled ginnells of night
To enclosed brick capsules of life, shelters
From the distant presence of the unknown

Wyther Bench

On the long green before the mud
Where the path cracks and wears to nothing
Is a bench burnt in the middle
Frowning upon its neighbours
Who leave it amongst rubbish
Its names charred to black
"They never loved this place"

The Place from the Train

Somebody lives there, in the place you've never heard of.
With bridges across roads and train lines never meant to be.
The backs of pubs with half names hanging from walls,
unused fields, too expensive to farm, too cheap to sell
and warehouse buildings with nothing to house, nothing in store.
The tight terraces and empty shops, the parks with no horizon,

Somebody lives there with dreams that rise and join.
That together say something, to those who listen,
That those who have lost life or live beyond
Their better judgement with imigination still
Have dreams within which to live
In the place from the train

Failing Forwards

When eggs were in baskets
Too pissed to stand
I saw it in him.
Emotion, withheld.

Failing forwards,
Being a man.
Picking features
From the floor.

I saw his smile
The pleasure in it.
I saw the human
Behind the wall

The Walk to School

The Children are back
Walking to school
They see the rain
Dark, distant cloud

The hand held and
The hurried up
The wonderers,
Who don't get there

The rain soaked and
The wearers of coats
Walk the same path
To be lined up

The timid and
The bullying
Each shouted name
Become the same

Belle Isle

Darker clouds took the last rays of sun from Belle Isle
As we walked the long road to a city that ignores us
Past the brick and concrete constructions of our youth
House by house, to the car covered barrier in our minds

We swam all night in a human sea, drawn like flies,
to half drown in bright light, sirens and screams
surfacing on Sunday with no money to return
A spiralling southern staircase, our own hands and feet

Bread Cake Bramley

Bread cake Bramley
With a potato wedge smile
Half moon, loose and seasoned skin
White, stubby, beer bottle arms
With a black label tattoo
Butt end fingers,
ringed with nicotine
Pin hole, salt shaker eyes
Staring