The Ghosts of the Five Lamps

They haunt the pavement,

those children of Eden.

They search for salvation

so their hearts stay beating.

The curiosity has long worn off,

like amateur graffiti on corner shop.

The steel-coloured houses, the steely people,

show them a world that offers no access.

But their ghoulish hovering asserts their need

and so, they acquiesce.

They freeze and squeeze,

their eyes together

Trying to shut out the world that never,

was their home

or any real place at all,

just one that provided a lonely alleyway or hall,

for real mates and real friends,

who knew each other way back when,

they could pretend that this life wasn’t real, and a better one existed,

so they chased and raced, fell asleep for an hour

and missed it.

They were young once and some still are,

but their souls are no longer, they've wandered afar.

Away from the blocks, the train tracks, the factories,

to virgin forests with white sands, their senses under assault and battery.

They crowd together, trying to speak

until someone’s interest is piqued,

when the one they’ve been waiting for comes strolling along,

sometimes nervous, sometimes strong.

The initially planned short intervention, at the insistence of the impatient

becomes a convention,

for the needy, the sick, the phantoms of the metropolis.

Some are buying medicine, others solace.

The crowd of four or five attracts interest but not surprise,

from the normal addicts and vice-mongers, its a daily show from the high-rise.

The ghosts of the Five Lamps never leave, like a rainy night in Soho,

their lives remain in the cold.