Poetry

Down on Reddall Parade

There was a man dying by the side of the lake

kids fishing from rocks

barely noticed him bent and grey

slumped in this sad moment

hands clutching at the tide

as white tipped waves churned past him 

he was moaning in the grass as everything

he had been fled into dark clouds

sirens echoed through suburbia

rain fell in a sudden burst

he was altogether gone

by the time they reached him

a gull stood hunched and morbid in the rain

I let the weight of raindrops

close my eyes and finger my hair

trees and leaves dripped with loneliness

the lake lapped round our hollow faces

plastic tape rustled in fierce wind

like a prayer flag to some deity

days later the grass stayed flat where he had lain

as if a weight of unbearable heaviness

had kept some agreement with the earth.

  

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