Wide Is The Gate And Broad Is The Road

A sky bleached like old bones
dug from damp earth on an autumn morning.

The pale sun spits on car roofs in a Northern town
where colours hide behind a sheen of grey.

Tram tracks, like silver trails of slugs,
pacing the slowly walking midnight man.

Something ancient and horrid has left a double-mustard
trail of crumbs for him to follow, but never stop upon.

He is nothing in this dystopian landscape -
featureless, amorphous except for outline.

His progress marked out by lines on the kerb.
Each waypoint - a little closer to the grave.

Grotesque shadows disembowel before him,
letting loose the dizzy demons he keeps hidden.

The streetlamps and chimneys point at the sky
like minarets to a forgotten god.

Footsteps echoing and bouncing down a path
of shredded hopes and dreams.

And when those slow, heavy feet come down
the pavement shakes and dust drops from the clouds.

Decrepit wire meshing, strung from rusty pillars,
keep the ghosts of the working class confined.

A wooden wall, built higher than a fort,
to stop the downtrodden seeing what is beyond.

Aerials pointing the way to salvation,
mocking the deaf and dumb and blind.

Behind ramshackle bricks, a den of vans and cars
growl at the injustice of their confinement.

In the distance, two black spectres wait
to harvest the souls of those who fall by the wayside.

And then, there is something alive in the murk,
something that cuts the air with a knife of humanity.

The darkness recedes and sunlight splashes everything,
to the sound of a nervous, tuneless whistle.

There is a fleeting moment of being alive
and relishing the dance macabre,

until he sees the gaping maw and gnashing teeth
of the back breaking gates to the factory.

 

Inspired By: photograph by Richard Nixon (c) Rich Pictures

https://www.facebook.com/richpicturesphotography