With anthracite, you need to get your airs just right

I muse to myself, digging the shovel in the bright

Copper scuttle of flaky black diamonds, and a flick of the hand

Hefts them right to the back of the grate; satisfied,

Happy that orange flames will lick, I spin the regulator,

Close the front, and leave the stove.

 

And go around the house, shutting the doors,

Turn keys in locks, put up the chains: October now,

Who would have thought it, its silent, stealthy approach

Marked by the darkness under garden trees.

 

Shutting-in time: the fire mended, the cat and dog both fed,

Time for sitting up late, candles for company, scribbling,

I listen to the stillness of the autumn; glad of the warmth,

Then think of those left outside in the cold,

Those I shut out.

 

Winter, as yet unbitten and unbidden, will come to gnaw

With cold, remorseless fangs, their exposed hands and faces;

The Christmas lights, in garish mock-stone precincts

Where drunks piss, and fight with the police,

Shining a dismal message of commercial hope

Bring no salvation to the huddled forms

In doorways, who will never afford

To buy more stuff.

 

Buy more shit, and somehow the magic will happen!

We’ll all sleep snug and warm, padded in wads of shares

While the tooth fairy sprinkles banknotes on the brazier: yes,

And if my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle.

 

Meanwhile, out there, bedded down behind skips and units

Under bridges and flyovers, on broken glass,

Or on the seedy banks of dank canals

A vast and shadowy army, a cancer on our conscience,

Grows daily, gradually, on the wastegrounds,

Of people we shut out.

 

Shut out by glib and specious leaders,

Smug in their gated residences, the forgotten,

Grey and shuffling, challenging our preconceptions

Only when found dead, or when you notice them

Selling “The Big Issue”.

 

And to my shame, instead of raging, I go around the house

All Robert Frost and folksy, stoke up my stove,

Keep everybody warm beneath my roof,

Shut up and bar my doors, October nights,

Coming in colder, yes, and try and get some sleep.