See how the sky moves

See how the sky moves

About my head

Even as the moon melts

A waxen pool stamped

Into the darkness

Sealed with a godly hand

I dance between milken beams,

Dreaming though awake,

Of Gene Kelly

Swinging on lamp posts

In a thoroughly modern way

Caught in a strip of light

From an open door

A woman with a blood-stained dress

Torn at the hem

One stiletto-heeled shoe

Carried in her hand

The door closes

I am none the wiser

So much of life is like this

One more drink

Would have suited me well

Unless it took me the way of the foolhard

At a car door

I thought he was being anti-social

Having read that story before

So took the keys

Out of his sticky limp paw

Running up the street

Into the night

To drop them through the letterbox

Of the satellite cop shop

On the corner

Only used in daylight

By special constables

Five days a week

So different to my early days

When we had Sergeant Argyle

In the village

Especially busy at weekends

In the hours after payday

I courted his daughter for a while

She was arresting

Wore ladies clothes and directed traffic

Standing in the middle of the street

He wore long white gloves

Looked the part

Until they took him away

Mood disorders are a bugger

So they say

More damaging when they run

In the family

As the nights draw in

Getting home can be a nightmare

The sky rotates

In time to a Strauss Waltz

Whatever happened to the North Star

The streets keep changing places

With road signs never meaning

What they say

I may have walked this road before

But it is a miracle of navigation

When I make it home

Before the dawn.