That boy

 That boy

That boy remembers everything,

every stream that ran into the ground,

every forbidden way to adventures

way above retribution’s reach.

The slow, ready to run steps through

every cubic foot of the fabric of the village.

Dark or darkening, the back ways beyond 

the reckoning of the adults  ‘them’.

Running rings around temptation’s boundary,

for there were none that could not be pushed over.

None! Not one.

Boy, didn’t we just! Did we just? Run the dereliction 

down the canals of time-control. Beating the

boundaries of time misplaced, and all that was

outside of the permitted, we did. Oh yes we did!

We did! We did! We did!

And boy didn’t we just revel in it. The limits that now

sketch out the memories of some torn cubist art map,

of ochre reds, copper bottoms, blue skies, white frothed

gutters of unimaginable filth! Oh yes we ran them all

to ground. We took no prisoners; oh no, we took no prisoners.

Boy did we balance along a narrow pipe. Across the flow

of companionship in pursuit of something’s something

or otherwise we would run the outer tracks and run to

earth another hare sent belting uphill, heather dusted

blossomed in purple and white and out of breath,

when far enough is alright to stop and gasp and devil

may care at what we did. For we took no prisoners.

Oh no, we took no prisoners. 

On those days when to run and run was

unquestionably all there was in a sun’s day, on a

night’s closure under a street light of bravado.

Home lads for tomorrow is another day.

Boy, we only just made it this time didn’t we?

The up dark way, the down dark way, and all

the gullies dark shadow’s hidden ways around

the foundling’s screams. The night sky’s foreboding 

in imaginations gone to mob rule inherent in

a stampede of thought, of fear, of now! Run! Run!

And run without stopping until time’s envelope

is ripped and out tumbles a mothed memory or two,

that in the rubbing of an eye is refolded and

placed gently back in the knife drawer. For

be careful how you extract the boy from the man,

for the cuts can be deep and without any blood

to clot, the waters run free, and all that shone

may dim away and dim away and dim away

and then .....

Boy, we took no prisoners, except this poor sod;

look at him sitting in the corner darkly eyeing.

Boy, he does look frightfully sad. He looks like ....

Run! Run!

Run!