High Friar Lane
overcast cut through
being gutter & stars
passed by & passing
as dragged clamour
of bricked-in bins
thunder & glass
tipped on glass
heaps bottling noise
to snarl a trapped
bite of angles
in echo down
the alley
heckled blind
by a vocational drunk
who barks
staggering to piss
one hand to steady
flat against the wall
& the lane dreams
ammonia
like an aqueduct
for caught-short
bladders
or now
where the memory
of Dixon Scott
ghosts Tyneside
to greet Ken Loach
& agrees the stains,
wired luminous
canopy, all the rain
& how it runs —
it has its place
a film that might be
stepped into
as the dazed & blinking
leave the cinema
David Spittle completed a PhD on the poetry of John Ashbery in relation to Surrealism at Newcastle University. David’s poetry has been published in Blackbox Manifold, 3am, Shadowtrain, Zone, Datableed, Zarf, and has been translated into French courtesy of Black Herald Press. Twice shortlisted for the Melita Hume Prize (2015/2016) and included in the Best New British and Irish Poets 2016 Anthology. In addition to poetry, he has written the libretti to three operas, performed around Cardiff and at Hammersmith Studios in London. David was commissioned to write a song cycle for the Bergen National Opera, since performed internationally. He blogs at http://themidnightmollusc.blogspot.co.uk