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.