breakdown

City limits

The thumping of shuddering wheel-bases

Is the heart of my concrete world

Where a mosaic of fast food ads

Gleam like pristine snakeskin

And tots gather dust

On leafless smog-touched walkways.

For some there are lights that glitter

And shimmer; an angel pavement

Fanning their youthful blaze

But the city's grind will tell on them

In the fullness of citytime

Each citylie they are told

Is like the eye of a snake

Remorse is unknown to it

And its venom is always there.

The breezes so valuable to a suburb

Or the innocent freshness of a park

Can revitalise some

But these are too often epilogues

Final fire-escapes

Where an ageing man

Blesses the unburnt wood of a bench

And spends his youth.