What is lost in the fire
will be found in the ashes
If I am willing to endure
this inevitable rebirth

She considerately held a smile
and strained to conceal the strain
of politeness,
asking correct questions
with an ear of patience
conveying interest
to spare feelings from being hurt.
Though I held a mask
of being fooled by her falseness
we knew we knew
and yet the charade continued.
I admire her for that.

I had hoped
as I had many times before
that it would not come
but the night would eventually depart
like the thousand friends I believed I had
vanishing like the shine of new paint over the course of time
sleep is better spent in daylight as the machine rolls mercilessly
over the depleting consciousness of those lingering desperate souls
and when the machine rests
I awaken
to roam the silent scenes and landscapes of the unbound thought
the minds well
this holy realm of darkness

They briefly loved who sheltered here; the beautiful Sarah and her cousin Will.
They fled the City to this place in England’s north wild rolling hills.
Her husband had neglected her, visiting stables and not her bed.
By that wild summer of Sixty- eight their estrangement had come to a head.
To this old country house she fled; to linger in her Lover’s arms.
Their close sanguinity proved no bar; she gladly yielded to his charms.
They summered here and oft were seen, together, on the Lover’s walk.
A place where blackthorn trees entwine; but you know how people love to talk.
He left her then, alone, with child, as coloured leaves began to fall.
Divorced, disgraced, abandoned thus; She sheltered in another’s home.
This famous beauty with Stuart blood there would raise her child alone.

Such is the history of this place; their romance played out in these halls.
Their scandalous adultery was consummated within these walls.
Modern beauties visit still and stroll with beaus the Lover’s walk-
A place where blackthorn trees entwine and old ghosts whisper in the dark.

There was almost a fight once.
I say almost, because it was.
I saw it with my own eyes,
in the bus station
that isn’t there anymore
because they blew it up
and everyone cheered.
I don’t remember it much
because this is years ago
and I hadn’t finished university yet
but I was standing in line, as you do,
avoiding eye contact,
like the cucumber
sandwiched between a grey old lady
and a pregnant ******* her phone,
waiting for the X4
or whatever it was called.
I was eating something
and then the black man stood up,
not too far away,
went up to the elderly man,
told him to move, got in his face
like an optician inspecting your eyes
except with more venom.
You could see it in the way he moved.
I don’t know what words were spilt.
I didn’t hear. I said I only saw it.
Then he, the black man that is,
kicked the other man in the shin
with the tip of his boot.
I just stood and watched
like everybody else
because it’s an unexpected moment
in an unexceptional place
as a brief scuffle began,
a thrashing of arms, a spell of aggression.
It ended.
The old man sat down again,
rubbing his leg as strangers spoke.
The black man looked riled.
Cops came out of nowhere
as if they magically transported
to a bus depot by mistake.
I don’t know what happened next
because I got my ride home
and got on with my life,
but I like to think they nicked him
for causing a minor ruckus.
But they probably didn’t.
The buses don’t go there anymore
because they exploded the station.
I might’ve said that earlier.