Doubled over Stella cans

crawling from last night's 10p home.

Late brunches for the new majority

waking within a block who's characters are now alone.



Previously untouched by the new,

the heavily worn and stained wooden

chair now longing for stories of the few.

The old exacerbated, they couldn't



see it coming. Their home.

Now a haven for the new.

A new Mecca for creativity with no retreat

For those left behind.



Doubled over Stella cans.

This used to be free the old fuss.

Now there's no home for them.

Their 10p shelters gone with a gust.

A strewn learner sticker

His ego was always too thick



Too thick for glass

A windscreen stood no chance



Now mourners melanchol

Of a young man taken



His mother saw the real him

She saw the fake



"A little angel" they say

Certainly the one he took away

The capital’s streets weave around me

So tight that it almost looks like I’ve forgotten

but you can’t see what’s underneath

the ember of an emerald

Of vast green fields stretching as far as I can see

Of the white beads dripping down a 99

From the orange September sun



The capital’s buildings tower above me

So high no sun comes through

We seek it out

Like we’ve left it behind here or there

behind this building or that.



The capital’s people stare blankly

Not knowing their howiya from their how are you?

But we won’t hold it against them.

Their blue suits

White shirts

And red socks.



I’ll keep my colour scheme, thank you.

My fields

My ice cream

And my sun.



All that remind me of home.

Staring into a tinted sky.

Every second plane a force

Ever closer to the crowded beach.



Listening to the ins and outs

Of waves.

The ins and outs

Of drills.



Natural meeting the unnatural.



Man takes from this historic landscape.

Another high rise hotel block

Filled with him and her

Seeking to find their heritage;



Without looking inward

They look everywhere else

And come up empty.



Another brimming August beach.

Another sky rise 50 feet

From the quelling swells

That remember times before.

Midnight, pitch black and raining

He washes his car.



Swimming upstream against the impossible:

Tainted raindrops creating an unfinishable task

Blind to its full grasp on his life.



He loves that car. Busted old thing -

Barely road worthy

But he fights to keep it clean

Through darkness.



Midnight car washes have become more frequent.

Filling the void. Filing for divorce.

Tainted raindrops smear his life,

His wife publicly smeared in a community obsessive over the local news.



Local rumour flies.

That rusty old thing

Why is he out there cleaning again?

Cleaning in the dark -

How can he see the dirt?



Inside she looks on, looks on to the coward.

She can see the dirt

The former great, the former lover.

That ******* car.



The muted mesh of metal

That held her former lover

and his former lover.

Out there his avoidance is her disdain.



Midnight, pitch black and raining

He washes his car.