The Dread, Municipal

The summer ends in static,
called to judgement
by the shorter days of weather,
clouds that sink to us,
to bring the skies to our place,
fog and chill in endless time,
sketches of the wild, black-coated things,
that are our generations,
flowing to oblivion,
and wished-for history,
class wars in the shrubbery,
the ambience of mild things and songs,
which flow from travelling gods,
bringing our divinity to mundane houses,
the dread, municipal in faded parks,
and murder scenes,
without the bodies hidden,
or locations marked for ever.

Poem For a Found Cigarette Lighter

Amongst the autumn leaves,
I find a cheap lighter,
the colour of barley sugar,
dripping with the strangely thin
and clear fuel,
half-way between two states of matter,
and a dream of manufacture.

I want to stamp on it,
to make it into shards,
to let the fuel flow
into the atmosphere,
across the grain
of this grainless, sooty bench
to lift the mood of birds
in their end-of-day routines.

I play like a kid warned not to,
holding the switch down,
until the cheap flame,
cheap as plastic,
makes the whole thing too hot to hold
and I drop it forever,
into the leaf litter
and conflict of near winter.