Ways Who Snickle Against Lost Time
Ghosts who haunt public toilets that aren’t on the high street anymore, for back alleys with warm palms exchanging a pound or two, knock-holes long since bricked up, unmarked graves each tethered shut for fear the demons shall escape & walk, a meagre tuppence for the company of a young lad to walk you home down by the riverfront there, only a moth-beaten overcoat between them and the stench off a passing tugboat, the early morning dew fresh on the grass, sodden into tweed and replaced by faerie dust generously sown between blades of grass & bluebells, the centuries for stalking the fog-laden streets and coughing suggestions under a breath that leaves no stain, a roman soldier only visible from the knees, the perfect height to tread on his skirt and gaze upon his six-inch sword, a gilded crack that runs the gamut of a china set, the tophats askew, a sullied memory that no-one attends, a semi-electric judas pushing a handcart of wares & lost souls, against the night, our prayers are answered with a prod, the writers & the poets come here to escape their monotony for a dirty weekender, a euphemistic drinking horn, drunk on each other’s tales of bloodshed, disease that runs amok in the footnotes of us, one archangel with a thousand yard-stare & claws that carry the unwilling to repent, here they all come to die again, for the right reasons this time, we must not walk no more, for the nights they will not have us, we are never safe here, the skeleton keys rattle in their doors, the antique bookstores keep our ancient thumbprints & pressed flowers through an age, bookended by terror, crushed by monosyllabic clauses in our constitution, we mourn ourselves, that chaste & rattle you hear in between the still, we’re still here.
