'Come To Pass'

Come to pass

He has hollowed the cellar
till the mortar ledges out
like steps to a decommissioned heaven

crates of imperishables
look on each other
forward commanders keeping a steel-grey faith

a creviced box
hides silver, gold, tumbles of yen and zloty—

who knows what stake will win
once the world folds into its last imperturbable sickness?

books on growing veg in grave-deep mulch
on teasing warmth from pinholes

lie open on duvets under plastic
breviaries to be reverenced
when sores bud thick on the skin of the age

in the street
he keeps his nose up for the odours
on the wind after next

car cuts in, man shoves round man—
tidings of night-fires
calamity taking snaps of itself
in a ringing line of visors

‘Closing Down’
runs everywhere beside him—

the arse-end of a nursery rhyme
cut loose from cockle-shell and bonnet

the imperishables were tricky to come by:

blueblood and pinstripe are deep in the game

each one night nearer
he revolves down below

casts a captain’s eye
over crate, book, duvet

spreads metal and coin

so they make an unbustable flush

shivers nonetheless
as a breaching chill of new weather

finds his ribs, collarbone
his tenderly defenceless neck

In Iota Magazine 93; also the title poem in my 2015 collection from Oversteps Books (overstepsbooks.com) ISBN 978-1-906856-50-2