1
As weeds we
Sprouted through
Rubble

Yearning for
Butterfly
Colour

Screaming at the
Light

2
Cobbles dull as
Uncut diamonds-

Porous brick seeps
Victorian soot and
Rain-

Beneath Peace Street
Railway arch,
Pigeon guano
Slips the slide to
School

3
Smog
Hand unseen across
Childish face-

No place to
Become other than
Monstrous

Now is the hour
Of Hibernation


Rest grey muzzle soft
Into rotting bole

Living on belly-fat
Of Summer

Snorting Sleep

casts huge leaf shadows on dirt
and the mockingbird's mocking me.

"mockingbird,"
I put my hands in my pocket
and pretend a smile,
"some things you can't out run,
church bells and a wedding dress,
funeral processions and baptisms,
the cop car radio,

she was so beautiful in her wedding dress,"

I'm pointing my finger up at the mockingbird,
"so I'm a few steps ahead of you in heartache,

it was a toss of the dice,"I tell the bird,

"I threw a handful of rice."

"so don't look sad at me, bird.
everyone gets hurt."

and on her branch in the sycamore tree
the mockingbird's crying to me...

"I'm a few years ahead you...
Sweet One, lonely bird.

I've walked through fire,
stared into the wall of shadow and sorrow
into the cold silence of tomorrow.

I hear what you're telling me, Dear One,
loves been a little ******* you, too,

and there in illusion lies the danger
so please be kind, my friend,

the sorrows that never seem to fade away
become the grey, dark sea,
and sunlight through the Sycamore tree.

I was to catch her
in  the rye
Maybe maybe
say goodbye

Alex stood naked
cloaked in orange
singing shivers
in the rain

We all know
how the story goes
So it goes
So on it goes

El Bib the acronym
To be read
back and forth
from end to end

Huckleberries
the river flows
down wrong paths
Big Jim he knows

I was the phoney
in the rye
A clockwork orange
in disguise