No-one lives

the days go on
with their mundane heart
a tailback on the motorway
tears in the morning
and the sick dark ball of
love and loss
embedded in the stomach like
undigested food
the day is grey and I am
blocked - no way forward
none back
and the pain of it stays
like a visiting relative
insistent, querulent
like an old maid
like a dumb beast hurting
with a knife in its gut
the blindness sears and seals
the darkness billows
its dark wings and sickenings
encloses me in its
wrap of glee - how do I
be me now, what
does that mean? the city
streets feign no loving they are
cold and grey with
people sleeping rough and
hugging their pain and
on a chill night dying -
today the squall blew in
whipping me up with grey
and soaking the blood
here I brood
and try to pick the meagre
bones of my life up
to fashion a body that can
walk, to fix on
a smile, to paint
hope on its chest, to breathe

life in its lungs, to pin it 
new legs, and lo!

it walks and talks and 
smiles - how the day

is pale and indescribable, how 
the blood red dimming tide

of pain strokes my shores

the day
the task
the carry
the worry
the trying
the no reward and due
for surviving
being human

for there is none to give
and no-one lives

previous poem