Leaves kick along the concrete path

Savaged by wind and feet

On a cat soaked morning

With boys on bikes

Underpass hanging

Looking everywhere and at nobody

Their eyes say guilty

I’m part of the gang

Yeah so what

Leave me alone

I’ve done nothing wrong

Cars nose round the roundabout

Tail lights redden

Resigned impatience

Horns and brakes castrating

Any chance movement

The radio blurts out its machine gun lies

Tripping off the tongue like so much static

Saying it’s the start of the weekend

When I know better it’s just another day

 

On the side roads the cobbles smooth and shiny

Fight off the rain

Daring anybody to walk along

Their slithering paths

The traffic lights change in twenty second bursts

Stop start

Stop start

e-cig smoke belch’s out of car windows

busy fingers and thumbs on mobile phones

as the drizzle draggle continues

across the screen

and I want to get out

put my hoodie up

head down

and ears plugged into a different zone

hands in pockets

to tramp along with the rest

but I sit there inching along

the endless tail until at last a welcome break

and the drizzle slows and stops

as I enter another world

a universe apart from where

I have come

Three lanes and some space in between