Under Milk Float
Or Colchester Tales....

In autumn – when fires are lit
I dream of broken fences in Cambridge Walk
Where conkers fall and spikey boys
Dog half-smoked spliffs en route to school

And by St Botolphs Circus
In Fagin's Den
I dream guitars and bullet-belted boys
And skinny girls who cry
In the ampphetamine blue night

When the rain falls in Culver Street
The long-forgotten faces
From long-closed pubs
All asleep now walk beside me
Andy, Ted and Antoinette
Killed by drugs or motorbikes
Or coming home from parties
In the drunken dawn
All asleep now

In October – on Friday nights
I hear the hissing gas fires in Maldon Road
And the bedsit kids in thin black clothes
Who listen to the Mish – live on chips
Put their face on after work
Take their washing home to Mum
And spend all week in monochrome

On Scheregate steps I met the devil
Standing by the paper shop
Tired now and middle-aged
Smoking in a track-suit top

And autumn when the sky is slate
And Priory Street is misty
I dream the teenage soldiers
kissing chubby schoolgirls
In Artillery Folley
One kiss for now
And one for the Shankhill Road

And Old King Cole
Can't claim the dole
They caught his fiddlers three
But he does alright
In the Middleborough night
With his black and white TV

In the High Street – by the Hippodrome
In the orange afternoon
I dream the oyster feast
The town council
The red carpet
For celebrities
To gorge themselves in the town hall
While some bag-lady
Goes down with reality poisoning
Outside Sloppy Joe's

In autumn – when fires are lit
I take a tea-time bus up Greenstead Road
With rabid steamy shoppers in their android clothes
Who dream of Telecom vans
and double glazing
Of shopping as religion
And cable television

Of rain-splashed windows in Lexden Road
Of half-term lovers on Hilly Fields
Of half-heard sirens in Castle Park
Of swishing car-tyres down Brook Street
And listen to me now
In autumn when fires are lit
I dream