The City

Cold wet streets
echo footsteps
of following fear
a hungry animal
prowling round my city
rheum-eyed wraiths
hunted and haunted
by neon glares
return rain-cold
recriminatory stares

Rag-huddled in cold
a life-worn once-man
in foetal embrace
protects his flame
guttering body heat
to the pestering wind
invisible to shame
and scurrying guilt
thanks God’s grace
him not me.

Bright lit tubes
suck in their fares
pump them like blood
through a hidden network
of arterial branches
to the city’s heart
spilling them back
onto pavements
past nameless eyes
to exclusive homes

Abandoned night-streets
not mean, but worse
indifferent to the pain
in tar-glistened rain
that finds no roots
to nourish or sustain
an excess of all but hope
the lost with no Visas
no Access to life
drown in company

Do not go gentle
into that good night?
rage at the twilight too
withering wisdom
walks unremarked
the alien city
old-fanged counts
cast no reflection
in our busy busy lives
passers-by - alone