LONDON ROAD BY JACQUES ROUBAUD

London Road
across from The White Lion
a public lavatory
closed
when the station closed

By the entrance to the subway
to Heeley station
also closed

HOW TO DO EVERYTHING IN A YEAR

to be a gardener 

buy everything 

and visit 

to visit

use your conservatory 

and climb Kilimanjaro 

to shop for baby

buy furniture 

and visit the Caribbean 

to buy

visit Alaska 

and buy anything 

to buy large appliances

go to Koh Lanta 

and apartment hunt 

to travel in Spain and Portugal 

climb Kilimanjaro 

and buy a car 

to visit the Galapagos 

visit Japan 

and visit Tanzania 

to visit Botswana 

trek in Nepal 

and lay turf 

to come to Costa Rica 

walk the camino 

and travel to Borneo 

to buy electronics 

buy Los Angeles real estate 

and visit England 

to get a great deal on a gas grill 

plan a reunion 

and conduct prescribed burns 

to burn 

look for an Au Pair 

and chose an Au Pair 

to visit Africa 

visit Reykjavik 

and visit Paris 

to ride Route 66 

visit the east coast Australia 

and complete an Everest base camp trek 

to travel in Africa 

have a baby 

and sell a home

to plan a wedding

go crabbing

and buy different produce

I (HEART) IPSWICH

Everyone in Ipswich is here on business

Nobody lives in Ipswich

Everybody lives in hotels in Ipswich

All the men dine on their own in Ipswich

Ipswich is one of the most beautiful places in Britain

Ipswich is a beautiful place to do business

Everybody comes to Ipswich to do business

The Ipswich Quayside is filled with yachts

The Ipswich Quayside is beautiful at nightfall

Business is done on Ipswich Yachts

Men dine alone on the Ipswich Quayside

Everybody comes to the Ipswich Quayside

Nobody ever stays long in Ipswich

I don't ever want to leave Ipswich

The Ipswich Quayside is full of business

Ipswich is not a beautiful place to me

I dine alone on the Ipswich Quayside

Nobody comes to Ipswich to stay

IN CLAY WOOD

24/11/2012

Masonry tumbles like trees

at the halt of the treeline

that darkens the crumbling

stone into leaf mould.

Ivy choked stumps reach up

from the thorned net

of brambling snares that catch

rabbits and leverets and walkers.

The city is nowhere to here,

it's another turn and stile

that goes deep into sludge piles,

another puddle to drown in.

THE OLD PLACE

for RM

I walked by the old place today
but couldn't see much from the front
past the overgrown privet that swamped
the bowed gate. Round the back
that Flymo we left in the outhouse
was buggered, the blade crusted with rust,
and those Qualcast hedge-trimmers
were entombed in cobwebs. That tree,
that threatened to pull down the wall
of the office that squared the back yard,
had withstood the knocks of the council
environmental department and flourished.
The lawn was a wild meadow of dandelions,
thrusting out cracked pots. The greenhouse
had collapsed to a pile of bent metal
and shattered glass. That wooden chair
was still sat where it sat before
and the fleece that got caught out
in the rain and was ruined still hung
across its shoulders. Not everything remained.
The neighbours had changed more than once,
judging by the addressees of debt notices
dumped in recycling bins. Placing back
pizza leaflets a child spooked me
staring through the letterbox. Two brown eyes
that watched me scarper down the jinnel.
A fat, haired hand in an upstairs window
let a curtain fall back shut.