Hard in the early evening
Stiff as the light lifted before dusk
Virulent as youth
He might have shifted had she not been
Rain lashes the Tarmac
Crows swoop low across the carriageway
The Severn is browner
Than the ploughed brown fields of autumn
Wagner turns triumphant
Relapses into one of his mellower moods
Worn out roads welcome me back to Yorkshire
Sodium lights sold short on their sense of purpose
What would Mr Hughes make of this
In his Barbour coat & deerstalker hat
A trudge to the drudgery
Or a walk by Wilberforce’s statue
This poem is from the collection
