Make the shelter yourself,
source firewood from feet away
and filter the water the way you want it filtered.

Take nothing from the word of mouth
or 'I've got a tip mate' people,
cos they'll be the wake that tips the boat.

**** email systems that connect us,
the metro transport subway buses,
the happy involved, affair ridden couples,
forget them, leave those suppressed thoughts in
and carry on your day the way you began.

Post Office:
Telegrams and Telephones

Tell me how the snow is where you are.

Traffic cones outside, must-be-done road works completed by no one nowhere men,
patched up walls clad in grit painted cream
shutters the same, shutting out the screams.

Graffiti bridges, restaurants on ridges-
river's rising fast, finish your entrée
let's leave.

Walk linking arms looking upon                                    
glimpses of brick, of an old home,
lived in years ago by someone unknown.

squeeze you to read you,
the pores that pour out hidden punctuation
that defines and makes and creates pauses for
you to look beautiful in.

there are two velux windows somewhere
in the world that look out onto chimney pots
and rooftops and birds next to each other looking
out over a flight plan that they'll fly together.

in pub seats we'll slide into and across,
placing coats on empty chairs so not to be stolen
and you pause. And out comes a list from behind a breath and a
colon: everything you wish to achieve in a year.

White maze for the middle classes,
collect your museum passes at the door,
please
continue through into exhibitions,
photo pictures of art you won’t remember the name of
but because you’re educated you’ll hope to retain its
name, medium, date and frame size of,
and equate them with those pieces you Googled before you came.

Through the double doors
her cries walked down the corridors
whilst cradled in his hands, cradled carefully,
he stood upright in boots on the
newly polished granite, shipped-in, floor.

The art gallery Father and Daughter
are the hidden display
only found in writing in the pamphlet
for today. Some will see them
through cuts in the door,
others may hear them but assume
it’s ambient art-gallery-played-through-speakers
sound coming from the back room.

Jumps back on the ketamine and the *******
and stands in alleyways and lanes
and forgets why the stars sit and the moon stands;
who fights demons with hairdryers and backward hats.

And it’s okay to look like your Dad you never knew,
in glances through the wood would only a few see the resemblance,
but similar hair won’t make up for lost Christmases
and days away at rain safari parks.

You’ll have to leave the fox hole through the brambles
at some point in the future,
so get scratched now and bleed a little sigh
of relief,
one that you’ve broken the tie and loosened the knot
and show us all that you’re out of your cot.