She wouldn't, couldn't give her name,
but they still took her in when she called.
I visited, adopted her,
though she must have been in her twenties.

We called her Monica. It seemed to fit.
She never spoke, sitting at her half opened window,
sampling a sliver of the fraught stree air.
I don't think she could take any more of the real world.

She stayed there safe in her dull, blue walled retreat,
an observer, lacking a ticket of entry.
And when darkness fell, and the curtains were closed,
the house lights went up on her secret, inner theatre.

The steps were white
from wives who scrubbed
their knees red rubbed
Down our street
Down our street.

When trains went past
the houses shook
not made to last
Down our street
Down our street.

And we played games
on cobble stones
to neighbours moans
Down our street
Down our street.

Now the street is full of cars
active kids play games indoors
aviators in alien wars
Down our street
Down our street.

It's a kind of blindness,
never been there,
never seen there.
Not through my own eyes,
just in films and stills.

Even here I bring the blinds down
on native town and countryside.
Don't see what changes and what doesn't,
trying too much to cope with the present,
future and imagined virtual fights.

So what do others see? I can't use their eyes.
Can they be my spies? Can they infiltrate?
Can they secure my interests? Or are they
double agents for some other clandestine cause?

We'll be well cabbaged
before we're spring greened,
snowed on, blowed on,
Christmas glowed on.

Out of our walnut shells we'll come,
cycling for pleasure, recycling
for good measure, joining
the cycling chains of life.

It's the one behind taking the picture,
concealed, hiding in the crowd,
but not of it, divided from it
by the spirit of the camera.

What will she say, latter-day?
'I was part of it and this proves it.'
But it doesn't. She's moved only
by its framing, its history.

The poet's toolbox is
an onerous store for skills
with life and death
and words that ****.
Pandora's box with broken locks.

Hammering words,
chiselling words,
leaving the reader
nailed, *******, glued.

Pulsing phantoms through the brain,
playing tricks, memory ******.
But the writing keeps me sane.

Tall trees bend to watch the circus.
Red-brown leaves dance and clown,
leaping high somersaults,
bowing off with forward rolls.

Empty crisp bags join the show.
Gallop ******* down the street.
Heads sink deeper into collars.
Flapping hats prepare to go.

Plastic bags trapeze from trees.
Overhead wires sing harmonies.
Creaking boughs play timpani.
Isobars squint spitefully.