A plague on sunlight

A plague on sunlight

The pain of it

Cracking a skull

Full of dust

Fragments of thought

The scratch of tinnitus

An insect’s bite

I must be dead

Beetles fill my head

In search of neurons

That would fire my soul

An explosion

To turn my insides out.

Stallholders

Shout in a street market

Old fisherwomen barter

For the best cuts

Hard currency

Brass farthings

Penny whistles

Knives being sharpened

On an old grindstone

A pedlar

A tinker by trade

Brokered in dreams

Of olden times.

The streets are full of pirates

Press gangs

The Kings’ men

Wild colonial boys

Bags of whelks alive alive-o.

Nothing is as it seems

My head is on backwards

The swell of pride

Long gone

With the passing of another

Restless night

Sullied in sweat

The blood of age.

It greases my palm

The bones of me

Are as broken

As a Spanish Galleon

Batten me down

I will unfurl in my own good time.