well described but I wouldnt want to live there, Arthur
SallyE
on 16/8/02 6:01 pm, arthur seeley at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> TheFlats
>
> Above ringing passages the wind mutters
> up flights of stairs pitched in gloom,
> wedged with shadows. Dust descends
> where muddled feathers rot and the purple
> lump of a decaying squab, beak still gawped,
> serves pulsing maggots that unravel its web
> of brief life.
>
> Here, all are guttural and stiff-tongued.
> The rank air threatens, stultifies,
> speech stilts as words shift,
> meaning decays and melts back.
> They tower, loom above streets,
> where the wail of sirens bode
> and night coils.
>
> Light spews across wet ways, a bovine piss
> clatters against the privy of a wall,
> a bawled obscenity pursues as the pack bays.
> Someone coughs and bleeds. Distant shouts,
> derisive as a donkeyıs bray, hang like a curse
> in the reek of life grown cold and fetid as old bibles
> in dank cellars.
>
> The valleys of the night are littered
> with debris, ragged wads of shade,
> that merge, coagulate to thicker dark,
> tear comfort from each otherıs arms,
> tangle and forget as the night bird sings
> to their flutes of subdued laughter and
> tunes of lust.
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