Nobody knows the back lanes
like this man.
The ‘Roads To Nowhere’
are misleading by name.
To walk hand in hand
with your wide-awake solitude
is the only way to traverse
the night-time labyrinth
of this sleepy Market Town.
Tawny owl meadows
up Valley’s slope, off that way.
Two Tramps at rest;
one under a bridge
t’other within a park hedgerow,
accepting the Autumn
deep into heavily pickled bones.
The graveyard’s a castle
when clouds obscure the moonlight.
As I tap, tap my skull-crowned cane
whilst whistling
‘The Old Rugged Cross’.
There is much left to ponder
as I minute-step through
‘The Witching Hour’.
Bodily, a prisoner of clock faces
with a Rover’s mind
as free as unpaid ‘Tick’.
I mark this incarnation
with a wink and a shudder
back down through the centuries.
Then step-up my amble
as the dark skies above me
start speaking of the returning grey.
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