You fuck them up
Your mum and dad
Split their arguments
Exactly how it suits you
Innocent, that you never were
And now in league with deceit
You trick and trap
Their every twist and turn
Burn the baby photographs
You've turned into a monster
Learnt how to mingle
With the single parents
You've put your folks on that black, back-foot
Ever on their guard to love each other
Moss grows on the lean-to shed roof
The singer sings of soft red roses
The guitar player picks away at the weeds
Stillness stands all about, through to the horizon
Another day without a wind; smoke clouds
Postcards on the mat, waiting by the door
Would love have walked any gentler way
With apple crumble and clotted cream
A smile deepened with each return
Unsteady for a few moments
Eyes back into the landscape
Plans laid out by Capability Brown
One step and then one other
Taken with a tremble into the cool breeze
A logo
On the plastic wheel trim
A crack
In the kerbstone
Flowers, turned and twisted
Tied with a ribbon
Of silkened, string-tie paper
Emblazoned with razor cut skin
Forbearance of the ever after
Two name tags
On black and white traffolyte
Screwed to wooden slats
An upright beech tree, trained
With precision, reaches for the sky
A soft tear in the car
Parked in there, beside me
Cars come, cars go, doors open
Doors close, the gardener rides by
On his miniature tractor
The singer sings
Of perfect sense
He sings; in the past
And also in the present tense
Black clothes; handshakes
Laughter, footsteps
Footsteps on tarmacadam’s solid earth
Friday is a good day to move on
Every Yorkshire lad would like to buy his mother
A bunch of pratty flowers
All blacksmiths make a lucky horseshoe for mum
By golly, by gum
The Eastern European, with the snazzy trainers
He's on the mobile
Not to his dealer, or his East England gang-master
But to his dear mama, ha ha
That simple lad, walking on the pavement
A jobless day, another what's it matter sort of day
Holding the bouquet uneasily, else which he fears
Might so easily fall through his life today
Back home, secure inside their own four walls
Clung together, yet without words for conversation
