CANAL SONG

Today I saw mallards

fed crumbs by a local drunkard

stumbling from the Grapes

onto the murky cut.

He crooned a forgotten song

that floated on the wind

as narrow boats chugged past

a chalky towpath

old as ghosts of workers

mean-eyed, coal dust-coated

heaving sacks and urging horses

in days now deemed heroic.

It guided him home

under mossy humpbac...

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ME AND THE DEMONS

Seven years old

in Saint Cecilia's church,

murals of scorched monsters,

red obscenities

dragging souls to hell.

Nudged down the left aisle

to that marble altar

I kneel under huge pillars

distant from the priest

whose beatific radar doesn't track

my schoolboy error

and I eventually give up.

Denied the sacrament,

denied protection

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ENGINEER

She got an old Volksvagen

and at weekends

we'd drive to the country,

stop in some small market town

for fish and chips

or tea in a corner cafe.

We were young

so not thinking constantly

about corruption,

injustice or conspiracies.

Another time was passion

in a broom cupboard

at the university

until someone opened the door.

She had a serious...

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TINDERBOX

Firewalker faith must be required

to hop this white-hot sand

and now all zones are tinged with fear

of sunburn or combustion.

We stretch naked in the dunes

until guards arrive on decency patrol,

ice-cream hawkers melt away,

persistent surfers finally desist.

The sea's an aquarium of coke cans

anyway, and plastic in the throats of birds.

Interpid...

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