Would we go

Would we go

You and I together

Walking empty streets

Following the rain

Keeping one step behind

The other

Resisting the temptation

To wade into cool water

On a clear night

When the moon lays its

Reflection upon the sea

As vindication

Of its reluctance to rail

Against the sun

Its powdered face

Pockmarked with a suggestion

Of surprise

At the progress of the stars

Old men sit in rocking chairs

Smoking briar pipes

Reminiscing about bygones

Waiting to be needed

One again

As bedroom lights wink out

Across the city

Vicious men walk abroad

To make a living selling souls

Burke and Hare alive and well

Making light of darkness

Prisoners of conscience

Look the other way

Dirty needles thrown

Down into the gutter

Brown sugar never tasted sweet

Nor did it miss a rich vein

Or fine form

Pretty lives flushed down the drain

Before the cock crows

In early warning

It is morning and street cleaners

Come to sweep away the stain

And we sit together

Watching from a distant hill

As the comedy unfolds

Are we complicit

Even as illicit dreams

Demand a place of honour

In our story

Everyone pearls at least one

To complete a knitted circle

A circumnavigation of the globe

Never goes without a hitch

Just the odd dropped stitch

Francis Drake without the balls

To bowl away an overstretched Armada

Come with me

Before I drift too far

On a high tide

And the reflection

Of a pallid bloodless moon

Into the deepest deep

Without you.