Blankets

Love is immaterial within these pitiless threads; pillow-less

Discarded piles, slumped into corners on comatose

Cobbles with corrosive patterns and

Patchwork masks. 

Here, where dogs used to wander between

Butchered brick and wretched wood, lesser

Strays inhabit these crannies

Bundles lost in chaos while Time drips past in

Parades of pity and disgust.

Spasmodically a splash of silver spins carelessly through

Sickly chiaroscuro, spitting back contemptuous lamplight, slicing

Through its comedy and settling, unannounced on

Matted braid, nestling amongst other unwilling eremites;

Part holocaust, part novocaine against the persistence of

Incomprehensible viciousness.

Once, maybe, on virulent mornings like these, warmth

Bedded down and snuggled within;

Once, maybe, tender hands slowly teased plump fledgling tufts

Awake; aromas of fresh coffee and breakfast infested

Fibre and memory; in younger rooms.

In this ginnel nothing is slower than silence, nothing

Quicker than sleep, nothing more indistinguishable than

Heaven from Hell and nothing cheaper than fare for the Ferryman.

No pennies for our eyes, we are simply pests inhabiting

Different worlds, carrying different plagues.