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under the bridge              
set in the monotony              
of grey mud-slung tires              
jettisoned branches              
month-old socks and milk cartons              
I discovered an abandoned television              
alien and outlandish              
protruding rays of wormtangle wire        
graced
with gloriously useless knobs.          
even without the plug it was electric              
bright              
lit the space about it              
pulled together all of the under-bridge              
made a welcome room of it              
but still held a distance              
seductively threatening  
flashing a jagged tube-shard smile              
singular          
divergent.          
             
beneath the bridge              
I thought of you.

the constant chirruping
as tired sun relaxes on
the stalks of heather pushing up
between rusted oddments

this is the summer-baked south east
in all its lack of cogent form

it’s in the train station
where someone’s placed a mattress and
littered beer cans and bags around

the detritus that follows everyone
even the homeless
hopeless
drunk

I write the same poem
always and time again

(don’t think I don’t know that)

but only because
I look at witch country
and can’t fathom
just what I find so painful and
enticing in its raggedy scrubland

and crooked promenades
and old leaning buildings
and churches like a beacon in
the shifting modernising sea