City
almost  done now,
the fun somehow has left these streets,
but weary feet are tramping home, sick to death and weary to the bone.

Rtoseberry avenue
postcode EC1 and then
it's gone.

Clerkenwell green,
scene of many unpleasantries leaves me and on to St John's street and
more city feet.

Old street not paved with gold except for the elite and more weary feet tramping on.  

It's the end of another day and the city always had its way with the few and the lucky ones escaped by bus,
not us,
we went hobo on the city street, tramps and dodgy people, feet so sore and where if when we look to see the Shoreditch box park know we are not far or free of Hackney and the night falls dark across me.

I do
I do
Said twice, but in my heart I knew it wasn't so.

I go because I must've been and seen it all before and though I know it's rotten to the core it draws me like a magnet and I am being trawled by some megaline or dragnet.

The streets beat me down and the pirates in this ***** town have stolen me away,
just another bedtime story written underneath the evening stars and just another ending of the day.

I am covered with
Excreted expletives
Light bleeds between my fingers
And merges with tears.
Words are weapons
Spat jaggedly, slicing cruelly
Into gentle dreams,
Silence is the final, finishing cut.
Leave me smothered
In dislike and disdain,
Leave me shaking,
Naked and in pain.

Are you so unused to the way love tastes
That you smother it in salt?

Keep your bitterness to sharpen your palate,
Your senses are dulled, and your flavours uninspired.

Feed, then, on that which makes you salivate
You lust only for that which you have lost.

I will no longer feed you pity.
I am too busy feasting, partaking of joy.

They do not know that we remember them here,
Their names and faces locked in our hearts
Each one a smiling, could-be-me,
An everybody.

They cannot see that we seek peace in their name,
Their death has birthed a unique grief,
The painful realisation that death waits patiently nearby,
Demanding to know why?

They will not feel the love and hope that holds us in this place,
The nods from passing strangers, of every faith and race,
The friendships forged from tragedy, connections made through pain,
Arms linked in shared communion, and hands held though pouring rain.

When they buried me in the dark, I was frightened.
I didn’t like the taste of earth.
And I was so thirsty.
Some people are no good with plants,
Even the hardiest shrubs
Wither and wilt in their careless hands.
You aren’t one of them.
When no-one else could see,
You took such good care of me.
Water, warmth and love.
These are my needs, but I had no voice
With which to ask; without you
I would have remained inert
A lost life, in the dirt.
See now, how I blossom?
Just a shoot, but I will astound them all
With my beauty, in time.
Thank you for caring for me,
Thank you for helping me to grow.