little italy

left wing

savoir faire

ageing flicks of my thin brown hair

like an elegy

soaking me

drenched in the language of social mobility

but i don't seem to mind

the gruesome link between

people and time;

it's an enemy

telling me

the wheels of profit

are circling in the opposite. life don't animate -

just creeps up on you slowly. surely

holy water

flows as normal water does?

in little italy

i re-adhere. sojourn in my guilt

wrestle words as the apostrophes wilt

let the elegiac question why

accidents happen or the well will dry. so some come

kill me quick

tie me down

to an anodyne drip

to the will of god

and the people with sticks;

for filled with the shrill

they show much better that

life don't animate -

just creeps up on you slowly. surely

holy water

flows as normal water does?

in little italy

i re-adhere. when the steeple cries

there's a martyr

for every pause. when a dozen die

it's a starter for ten

to the men

who proselytise that

a life isn't owned but atoned. they solidify

and in time become

blackened and martyred. life don't animate -

just creeps up on you slowly. surely

holy water

flows as normal water does?

in little italy

i re-adhere.