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

A View from Armley Prison

There is a view from Armley prison
A heartland on which to reflect
A view of clear skies and towers
In spring, happy visiting faces,
every morning's missed
A view of grey, pissing rain
Autumn cloud and concealment
A cold distant Christmas
Tired, empty darkness
Bright morning

Our Time

This is our time in Belle Isle
Margarie and I, dawn quiet,
the clear up and shut up of youth

On Heights estate, the gunnels of
discarded bottles are open
In Middleton and on Cavalier Hill

We're like birds who've waited for the roost
nights of noise have given over
to the morning power brokers

We tap our sticks on no go areas
the enemy asleep 'til lunchtime
this is our time

Happy

A dog called happy
Hippies my uncle calls them
Then he won't turn up for tea

Separate Rooms

You see me, almost. sometimes
In a dream with you, Leaving school
In nineteen fifty two, dancing
knowing what to be

We don't speak. Like we used to
"seeing the family soon" A mention for the weather
This June, which has been the same
For over a week

It used to be in that look or smile
Not for a while. The jokes
haven't lasted, we only share
our distain

Who is to blame,
These useless connections, lack of respect
Didn't check, memories, swallowed,
Down the rat poison way

Today, we pay for our 'lack of doing' crime
waiting for our time, in separate rooms

United by Screens

In a suburb of boredom I am connected with you
Carricatured, youthful with little we can do
Denied our agency and with lives others don't see
We find each other online, were we exist, you and me
We are are vilified, patronised, compared to their youth
They restrict our access, take our time. They invent the truth
We should have a "real conversation" they say
But we are real and we are talking, our way
We know what we want and we find it online
Electronically connected almost all of the time
Until we can choose our lives, we'll seek to be free
A truer connection and the acceptance of what we see
That we're actually human, able to think and in our teens
We're sharing, we're sociable, we are united by screens