my dog barks
when things are hard
he snarls when he's afraid
and when he finds it
all to much
he skulks back in his cage
my dog is just like other dogs
his heart is there to see
I'm not sure if
he's learnt these things
from watching
other dogs
like me

all sounds are muted
as the muzzled wave
shakes the street-stood
to their rubbled graves

an act as black
as snow is white
paints a greyness
in its blinding light

every single
pane of glass
once drum taut now
scattered by the blast

and on it rips
sad dandelion
blow the hours
from the rising sun

I know this fear
I've swallowed threads
I'm nothing if not
shaken by the dead

my smile
stitched my face
like a crocodile
beaming
top deck
of the 63
as we ride
the dark
outside

my old dog feet
won't
carry bones
padding over floors
tiny paws and tiny toes

in a street of lights
new smells
hollowed out
do you see reflections
of the wonders outside?

downstairs stop!
am I
lead right?
as plain as pain
my heart is a bleed

bathe me again
buckets
soapy warm
may well never
fill me to the brim

My city is awash with dreams,
some are painted on the walls;
they're lurid like a migraine,
lucid as a hummingbird.

My lover is a dreamer too,
she speaks a partial truth;
her words are like a fragment
of my city's only street.

She told me how she's searching
for the palaces of glass,
but every pocket map she's had
is a labyrinth of folds.

When all the squares were folded tight
and pressed upon themselves,
she walked along the creases
and fell into my world.

Beneath the neon blindness
of a piercing blue night,
we fused into a lump of clay
and lay down on the earth.

My city is a towered forest,
tearing pockets from the skies.
Crowds in heaven peer below them;
a precarious insight.

little man, big man
funny Mr Punch
tangled up his string
turned into a glove
was a man above
now a man below
swinging at the missus
in his very own show

bad man, devil man
anger in his bones
fighting the police
with a ******* rod
has he a conscience?
has he any pride?
what about the real man
who is hidden inside?

I don't know how long.
Before I understood it had changed?
An hour? A day?
The señora appeared on her balcony;
gathered washing,
glanced up,
closed the door behind her.
I blankly searched the empty sky.
A seagull swooped.
Gradually, boats in the harbour turned,
now facing the other way.
Suddenly, a new wind blew;
hot, breathless gasps of air.
No cicadas.
Silence.
A few raindrops fell like birdshit,
splatting on the stone steps.
I'm sure all these things have names,
if you were local,
you would know them all.
I have no other words.