the dirty nine steps

walking

that rough black slag-shodden road

  pitch deep on rifleman’s row

that guy fawkes cordite-night in 58

  how were we to know

walking 

that pearl bulb lamp-lighted road

  down to a wooden secret in aeron thomas’s 

that super-moon wide-eyed night in 58

  when we simply broke our promises

walking 

that men-to-work cinder-red path

  to a gutter stalactite culvert

that dared a nine-year old in 58

  go on go on it wouldn’t hurt

walking 

that times-gone-by midden strata

  to a ginger-beer fisted jar

that was a stone-made treasure in 58

  grit brown down deep and far

walking

that milk-white coarse-haired ratted gutter

  where we made five fingered fountains on

that damned lake-wide flowing 58

  as deep as the mountains ire

walking 

that slag-bot topped chapel wall

  in a slip-footed tightroped daring do

that spied the sangfroid vestry 58

  of a sunday bloody sunday schooling you 

  

walking

that march-hare heathered hill

  under a lark-blue sky on a spinneying wind

that tore a child’s genie-dream in 58

  and sent it soaring far out of mind

walking

that impatient wriggling well-worn path

  across the wings-on-heel fields to

that tadpolled spring-fingered pool

 to stock my aquarium well overdue

walking 

that way down sixty time-sped years

  sliding on the smile-bled tears

that cuffed the naughty boy’s glint-eyed joy 

  for boy oh boy never had we fears

or foresaw when a second childhood nears