COURTESY + COMMON SENSE

• pale gold castle school
• it was so special, that time 
• everything mattered
• what we got at the corner store
• what kind of muffin, dense chocolate 
• or oily poppyseed 
• chocolate milk or Martinelli’s
• diet coke with lemon 
• I wish I smoked then
• so I could return to it now
• stand in a corner and put on a song
• close my eyes and hold the ember 
• out like a lantern
• airplane arms rigid drifting 
• in a controlled 
• glide

The Done Thing

Infinite want, infinite lack

you get the need created

and you create yourself

like the dozens of selves

of cul-de-sac and close

and avenue and row

or not row or terrace

and place is never where

you'll feel placed especially

if your ahs are ays 

it knows you also

from the gelatine that

held the crab legs and 

tinned tuna together

to the crockpot

and the fondue set

which was replaced

with cheese and pineapple

the spent cocktail sticks

you could snap and

spell out messages to

neighbours on napkins

help me into here

help me see this was

was worth seeking

that I don't want to 

let go of the mower

to destroy umpteen 

hedgerows that

bowed legs in the

summertime and 

screams of foxes at

night and a garden that

refuses water

are the treasured

emblems of a city

that needs but doesn't

want you and a

countryside that will

never take you on nor

the developer's

low level skyline stamp.