These charcoal slipstreams hiss an’ spit   Past dead-grass paths all piss an’ shit   An the gangrene thoroughfare snarlin’ wi’ jealousy…   Oh bent back lamp-light, ‘luminate   These cracklin’ wounds by station-gate   Like the dawn scarrin’ the night-time stretched ahead o’ me   And nostalgia thick and potent and as pulsing TV radiance   And the concretes tauntin’ cries   “Come on singer, fuck sakes, sing for us”   And a sketch predictably   Coiled around a broken C      Broken-glass bouquets lain over streets, catchin’ reflections   Of the mornin’ clutchin’ gifts o’ clarity   And in her smile   A momentary burst o’ some sweet decadence   She takes my hand   She says the drunken day is waking   Take me someplace still in awe of twilight      Vagrant chorus lined up ‘long the walls outside the chapel   Singin’ “Which Side Are You On” an there’s a hint of something glorious   Swellin’ in the pauses ‘tween the words   Set for piercing almost every ear that’s listenin’   Yeah, the rest just sigh an keep on walkin’      Broadsheet prophecies! Some monstrous calamity!   I’m makin’ notes, I’m writin’ lines   Chockin’ on fear an yeah, sometimes   The fear is crippling an’ I’m trembling   I bite my tongue till everythin’ is   Fragments of a narrative   A fiction, nothin’ more       Grafton Street all raw wi’ memory, we walk on wounds   And sit by cafes watchin summertime carve madmen from Cathedral stone   I love you and it cuts my tongue to say   But that’s ok   My melancholy suits my haircut   Like the piss-burn suits the gutter steam