between the iron ways

a beat city, barren with colour,
withstands the nettle slips & stings of steps
as flat clubs tonguing in blunt flaps a solid safety,
a running beat the tapped bleat of the lost―this city is a beauty at the railtracks;
the empty traincars left dark
between the iron ways,
the hooked cranes paused in heavy arcs,
the far-off hum or whine of quiet unknown lights & by them all
the bent rock of the low sonic cliffs
creaking their ageless centre from human dawns,
a stuck age keeping the inner hill-wolf’s frown.

it’s this, further on, the enclave of reeds
climbing a park, or snow’s crashed carriages burning
with the hillside frost―here is a close Alone
and the absence of built stone & glass
where my next steps take me―
not even seagulls come to ruffle their prayers
over this haulbuilt harbour.

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version 1