This Town
I brush stones off cheap earthworks
marred in wretched waning light
in bars of concrete, platforms drift
and I climb, skirt a boundary.
True, they drift, and I a drifter
for four days now, take heart
(what little I can) from the sun
that broke the boats through glare.
Now shade, the evergreen snaps
borders straight rule I descry
fringing the house on the hill
but my own hold in iron clasps.
Just a little, just a little bit there...
I am shaded as a curtained room
water beckons navy, wreathed, slick
can't seem to get from 'A' to 'B'.
In this town, our town, their town
men grown too fast too old
grasp straws through half-light
then turn cold, grey, all nights.
I clamber to the edge of the dock
and there can barely seize
the last remaining crumb of reason
before the turning of the tide.