Saturday, 11 November 2023

where the ashes were

 where the ashes were


as white and grey as a lunar landscape

as accepted as the moonshine on the chapel roof

next to the orange pub

next to nothing but dark streets

cobbled in slag as shiny as blood under a street light

the goat boy a racing car

screeching around every corner

playward bounding past

the privet hedge where they stood

that row of five outside toilets

with oblong wooden seats worn bare

pans like upturned witches hats with

yesterdays newspapers behind the lead pipe

four leaf clover by the garden gate

as incongruous as a fairy tale

across station road the marsh

down to the joinery factory and the railway 

and the ashes of course 

throw down there where a stream gutters

and the mattresses grow blackberry bushes

butterflies everywhere flying away on time

where time was not a scene set in memory

not yet for the ashes still sneeze

and laugher is an express train

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