With an air of concealment

With an air of concealment

Loose strands of hope

Flop over the eye

Of the feint hearted

Barely holding court

With reality

The smell of hysteria

When things go astray

Every sleight mounting up

Telephone calls with the elderly

Too frustrated to complain

When the world moves on

Motherless children

Too lost to remember what it was like

To be loved

Fathers with a box of regrets

Pushed under the carpet

Teenagers ragging each other

Bullies learning to kill

Street fights with knives

Stolen from kitchens

Covered in claret

Filleting avatars

Heroes from old wars

Sleeping in the doorways

Of boarded up houses

Whilst people go cold

Hunkered in bolt holes

Teaching children

The art of allegory

From old poetry books

Everything abandoned

But disdain

For the feint hearts

Life is a pastime

Nobody cares for today

There is no tomorrow

And yesterday's gone

To the dogs.