On Dark Places

That award winning poet and novelist Jane Holland is doing a sort of online poetry workshop-come-challenge thingy. It is entirely Robs's fault for tempting me to attempt this madcap exercise, which makes a change as normally it is Julie who gets me to do the stupid stuff.

I don't think I'll post what comes below to Ms Jane - it was written in less than fifteen minutes and is thus by definition vile writing - but I will try to have a go at revising it sometime in the next 7 days (house guests permitting) to see if a few words might prove to be salvageable ...

On Dark Places

Cold in the tunnel, cold
and dark like the death of christmas
blown away by the wind in a fit
of brittle chill. I can sit
and wait a while for you here
beneath the stencilled angels
but my feet are wet, as torn
as pockets poked for loose scraps.

Do rats smell of piss, or tramps
of rats? I smell of rich food
gone ripe, I smell the fumes
of their passing. I am no hedge-whore!
It is the sky that leaks, the gutter
that calls for you; I write you
my name on walls with crayon fingers,
red words: I'm still here, still here.