1891 Poem by GRANT FRASER

1891 is where I wait,
at times,
around 3.30. am,

when cats are out,
and fox's for a rake,

while 'Baxter Street'
reinvents me,

for all kinds of reasons,
and childhood,
now well worn,

as well as carved
granite states: 1891,

and the post office
now walled over,
the front bit was green,
had a little newsagent
around the corner,
who sold 'Walls Ice Cream',

as I remember criminals
once tried to rob it
but they didn't get anything,
and it was in the news-paper that night,
even on telly,

and 'Snuffy Ivy' lived adjacent
to it, on 'Wood Street',
and spoke through her nose,
but she didn't give a ****
and sang songs downstairs
on the No10 bus,
her daughter I think
was a T.V. presenter

1891, is hard to define sometimes,
though,
for me it means gangrene
& bad dreams,
and the demise of a great French
poet, that once meant a lot to me,

the moon is out, and I can smell
whiffs of strangers sleeping,
leaking out from the partly
opened window above,
it is musky, sweet, and feint,

ghosts if not the presence of time,
long gone, somehow interupts me,
the roof tops interlope,
and the old grimey chimney pots,
hardly smoke now,

but frame the nightsky
as if it were 1891...