How days break

Motes of ashen newspaper
Afloat on midnight thermals
Breeze through city streets
In thick, coughing gusts;
Edges’ embers guttering.

The heavy-eyed street-sweeper
Sups machine coffee from a
Steaming cardboard cup,
And a cold clock strikes
Something between dusk and dawn.

Behind electric-locked doors
In arid hotels, sleep sounds
Snuffle and shuffle
From soft throats, while shoes
Stand empty, longing to creak.

Sandwiched between these spaces,
Mice gnaw PVC cables.
Crane-flies pirouette
Over cutlery
On moonlit breakfast tables,

And miles away an email
Lights a screen; a machine wakes,
Choking back to life;
And fresh tracks are pressed
Into the pine-scattered earth.

Before even a needle
Of white sunlight has tickled
The goose-pimpled sky,
Inklings are kindling,
And history is being made.

Appears in:
Rhymes for all times [2015]

Video: