For The Poison

Splurging hidden in the mud and the tyres which
Skidded healthily all year long, coughing for us
The night before, overheated onto
The self-same driveway, of school-brick sentimentality,
Of hour-long knowledge, of hard hospitality,
The façade sun-ridden and sick with liquids swilling
From dank, cool corners. The sickness which took us
From our cribs, overplayed our tweens, congested in the                  
Mires the Fridays, the weekdays and halo-happy
Leftovers. Dumb intake, the Ron Montilla, locked to a point
Under the eyes of nebulae, nurturing the love of
The putrefying smoke, painting the planet in its
First pink sigh over your approving nodding head,
My clapping campus hands. Dragged stony soles
Over cobbled wet earth, the vehicles of hard-won conviction
In lie-drawn eyes, after sleep on grassy banks and
The left-swinging pendulum gait of crystal-blinking
Night bus travellers, haughty beggars to the
Company of the invisible shadow-swimming horde.
We lost the way back from your house at
Dawns, in weirs and root-bound ricker-houses
All the way from scanting Mersey and Metropolis,
Sleuthing the way to the sullen canal by directions from
Air vents, pretending reluctance at the blare.
Harden lanes we slipped through unsympathetic
To the lights of pastel scattered star blocks,
Raging distant above in thrall to those zodiac Gods of
Library legend, slumped over countless blackened seats and
Skins, regaling each other with the faint uncertain looks
Of old-time concession, prickling in wry
Mattresses wrung and tripped to from shuttered
Lighthouses left and fine in Hara-hung tributaries that
Expire year by year, sickly wires protruding from the
Shrubs and ears and subways, the progenitors of
Generations of years, mimicking aged town-crying
Fundraisers and paths we are to a fault. We bald
And bleach days worried by hire, ferreting out warrens
And half-full bottles, the ever-ending lame snag of
Eyelids, Gloucester raincoats and how the blue wood
Spinning tops of baby racing down fortnights
Digressed in wan and bruising arms, sunk wilful chasms,
The suspenseful following their grit stone track.