Maze Poem by Beryl Stockman

Every year grey streets return and grey tones on brown,
Damp seeps through to everything,
And someone sits in a doorway forbidden to go in.

Within recent memory there was wind that scattered leaves,
There was colour, now most of it is gone.

Still someone sits in a doorway,
And may not cross the boundary between cold outside and warmth within.

In places icy draughts are funnelled,
Corners capture them tall buildings draw them in.

You can escape through pockets of brightness,
In this wilderness somewhere there is the colour of fire.
Fragments of mosaic, patchwork, bright paper.

And cold that is deliberate like ice in a glass.

Here is merely an icy street,
Bricks, paving, bare railings, grey rooftops, concrete and grime.

Leafless trees and cast out items,

Nothing that speaks of home except a discarded mattress,
And someone who sits in a doorway and is forbidden to go in.