Council house

This is council house,
screams fifteen years old,
with child. Big emptiness. No one chooses this.
Stout structures split with families, cleave
spare rooms to themes sometimes.
Questions: How old will I be? /How wild?/
Above and below
are but one thin ceiling away.
and falling through either'll cost you money.
Minimum Twenty. 

Morning sighs and pours sunlight in,
fills the cup of life with it
above the backie-
the tip that's somehow handier
than the kitchen bin.
Whole thing just chokes as children play,
close enough for comfort
but not too far away.
But night time
comes home far too quickly.

Machines wash heartbeats in darkness
to save elecricity. Sleeping babes don't mind,
so why should we? Hey! I dig this rhythym -
and chap shelves to walls in-between,
places to put things
I collect now travel
through all this like a cloud - see!
Seems still Logie,
but spins faster than the eye can see.
Distant telescopes won't catch this din, come morning

Eyes unlatch themselves reluctantly

while council workmen wear
their job-descriptions loosely.
Hammer the front door first
then any old thing in the vicinity
of the State's responsibility.
Finding it hard to get real work, even for Wimpey,
they renovate thier negligence, their need
to furbish job security. Hinge.
They'll be back in the Spring.
Boiler-suits in a time-loop.


Cor March 1998