Late again

footsteps, always, footsteps

lurch for the light

November is all old breath

wasting in cracks outside.

I can tell that this takes

you time.

Pulling the chain on

a disintegrating world, where

everything is a pretty

picture, celebration and street

parties are mandatory and

summer has been rebranded

as a megatrend.

Three wide faces, pastel colour

and deep, chipped and choked

with the stranger, nature

face off across the half-lit

forecourt. This is where you

bend to pray. One screw turns

to a pale inside.

The coat is on the hook

brick, oil, coppers.

A faded swastika adorns

the far wall, crimped

in one corner,

red white black

like some joke gone wrong.

This is perfectly natural

you move paperweights

and climb inside the hole

where the wind drifts to moans

and what questions posed

are left to fall away

leaves beneath charcoal sky.