The Late Boys

The scuttle bug clatters about the room,

Banging into coal carts and rag and bone men,

It scratches at summer cricket in back lanes,

And herds the late boys out of the long nights.

It runs the whole length of the pier;

Squeezed stone from the ocean's flow,

And kicks a block from the priory wall,

Until history called time for home.


The late boys raid the corner shop,

Drop the walls, refund the bottles back,

Spend the money on sickly tat,

Then down to the beach to throw rocks at crabs.

Along the shore you will find them all,

Hidden in the world war concrete,

The smelly rags of lonely men,

The tide takes out to rot down again.


This bug that scuttles about the skull,

Chases out his tidehood memories,

The trawler that broke from its weary tow,

Its settled hull was swarmed like pirates,

Life vests, maps and the most prized compass,

We stripped it down to its ship's bare bones,

Looting it like we had always known,

The untrained orphans of an island home.

Still Life

The light has come to wake once more

Against the day that moves outside,

The air is dried inside the room,

The books are where they always were.


The blood that shrugs to life again,

Pulls the tide to sob with regret,

The ancient strides that still don't last,

Fill with age when he steps away.


He sifts the ash of a late fire,

No dust floats from the iron grate,

Runs back to where it always was,

Fragile, laid in just the place.


The room is sealed the door set hard,

What is will be continued,

Those that wait will be obeyed,

The dust is set where it ought to stay.


Still life takes place when no one looks,

In this green room he has been placed,

To know and wait and take back time,

From those who took him to this place.