Totterdown

Brown and terracotta tiles
mount the hill
like steps to the shrine
of St. Elias

Dressed in drab
for a stillborn summer
the trees yield
to plastered clutter
Crowded-in
neighbour-on-neighbour
painted by children
in every colour

Doll’s house windows
keep their vigil
for bending widows

Toy cars
pour down cataracts
of glistening tar
to a crumbling jumble
of bricks and steel
where God’s judgement rumbles
over no-man's land

From a battleship sky
scavenging gulls
endlessly wheel
and call to the town
as rain pours
on the tumbling roofs
of Totterdown