Ghost

In his whites
The night hurts him
As he gets closer
to something of himself.

He has no idea
Who he was, what
Cause he fought,
The last thing he bought.

He hangs out, invisible,
On street corners, checking
For his blood between the
Cracks in the pavement taking,

As a clue, a crisp packet
Skidding
Across the road towards
A man wearing

A beige mac
Smoking a cigarette.
Smouldering
Like a detective.

This man is on his trail
For something he may have done.
He sees straight through him
And freshens his mouth with gum.

'I look for love in the city,'
He overheard him say
Later, behind his back,
The moon full and unassuming.

And once, before, sometime,
He remembers an old woman,
With a glowing face, giving him
A medal for something he'd won.

Sometimes he sees
Himself as a passenger.
He rides and rides and
Never strives to be original.

This has all been done
Before after all, ghosts of
Men and women, cats and dogs,
Spiders! He likes jazz,

The way it overlaps, undermines.
And he dreams. He dreams
About photographs disintegrating
Into a rainbow of colours.

As a ghost he should be able to
Stop, and float into the sky.
Become the sap in some tree or
One note screaming from a saxophone.

He acts on instinct, because
God never got back to him.
Not once.
So he drifts backwards through

Rank, forgotten passages,
wondering If this is where it happened,
In some damp corner
Where newspaper turns to mush,

Or high on some fire escape
Overhanging
A screaming woman
Who may or may not be his lover.

And sometimes there is a smell,
Which is sweet, but
Not artificial: more like
Something that's been worked for.

On occasions this has led
Him into all sorts of dark
Places and then, some,
Light as hospitals.

He can't give details
Or remember one bone
To the next; in his
Pockets he finds paper

Shredded into strips,
Dirtied by thumbs and fingers,
Sending him running, frantically,
To the first person he meets.

Telling them about his
Hunger, the broken strings
And the flotsam in his pockets
That got him here.

How he feels as light on
His feet, as an angel, when
Some fragment slips into place
And makes a picture.

The heartbreak of it all
when a man who must
have been somebody,
forgets about his transparency.