Where I Am Not

Thoughts
Colouring the streets like bruises,
I walk.

One step falters
On one memory,
Like blood in gutters:
Open arteries spilling
Life into sewers.

But
I keep pace,
Gasping through echoes
Of a whole life
Long gone,
All gains lost and
All pains stuck
Like skidding tyres,

Which is why I walk.

The roads ripple like knuckles,
Weeds weep up and out:
Tears without shouting,
Like a funeral -
Procession on foot
Under a mile-long corpse,

A concrete uncertainty.

This city of hopes ruined
And luck run out.
I navigate hills
Golden like streetlights,
Unfurling before me
Like garage doors.
To applause, to calls for encores, screaming
More glory, more for me,
More, more, more.

Which is why I walk

Head held high, in the clouds
Like enlightenment
But low down and dirty
Like a crime-scene
Where the innocent are not murdered
And the criminal is pinned
By conscience and Police-tape.

So fuck the pain, fuck the blame,
This shit will stay for a long time
But here it will remain
In the dead-end alleyway ancient dungeon
So far, far away.
Behind me, beneath me
While I live
More and more and more.