Four Cities

Bristol:
brewery stench
and cliff edge perching
of blistered houses
drab pastel harlequin,
streets flowing
with human misery
and human waste

Birmingham:
a cold stone underground,
concrete dark,
whispers and echoes
through steel veins.
Death waits
in shop door corner sorrow

Liverpool:
rain falls
on withered tower blocks
full of withered people
living withered lives,
always a pub,
always a joke,
always a bottle in the face
a knife in the back
a pint of brown ale
and packet of fags

Glasgow:
mountains walk
through the city
in disguise,
as banks
and hotels
and department stores,
from station to station
they watch and wait
in silence,
bathing in morning sunlight
like post-coital lovers,
wishing the day would wait
'til they're ready to rise