streetlights just bright enough to take away the stars

could be anything up there

schrodinger’s sky

the homeless are on the burn-pile out back

tidy them away with their festering sores.

 

there are eleven year olds addicted to skag now

dealing in the capillary-like alleyways that fall off the main street

legs soft like glow sticks under the sulphur beams of the fly-traps outside the food banks.

 

i can smell the despair wafting through the cracked windows of the pubs and clubs

time was all you could smell was the thick smoke of woodbines and fifty pence cigars

now its sweat, fried food and testosterone

well, until the wife calls and they scuttle off home like hermit crabs switching shells.

 

never mind, I make my own cloud now, an ember in the night, a fog upon my eyes.

the schizophrenia of this city is there for all to see

there is blood and shit and piss

there are those who have to wade through it just to survive

and there are those who use the bodies of the damned to step over the filth

 

i’m walking from my house to the next bottle of scotch

when a boy approaches me, no older than a boy should be in the moonlight

he looks emaciated underneath his thirty pound t-shirt

he drags his deformed sister in a shoe-box behind him

tugging at the frayed rope, the umbilicus holding the bastard family together

won’t you look into my box of stars fella?

and he extracts a matchbox from his pocket

go on, look into my box of stars

and he pulls open the matchbox, and inside the matchbox is a cotton cloud galaxy of stars

whirling and turning, propelled by the love of the universe

do you see what i see?

and i do

and he opens his mouth then

and tumbling from his throat comes the song of a people i do not want to know

the notes emulsify like snotty tears, a choked refrain

he looked into my box of stars

and the sea came to his lungs

and i am shrinking

my arms and legs are receding like the tides under a steady moon

i am but a torso now, a stump, a whisper of the heart

and my blood is boiling

my skin is tightening

and now two boxes glide silently behind the boy

and the streetlights have dimmed

and i can see the stars

and they are timeless and so beautiful.