Back to Jamie Cavanagh's Artist PageTo the Artist's Page                   Back to the Unlikely Stories home pageTo our home page
Canto PopuliTo Jamie Cavanagh's previous piece     Stake in the AssTo Jamie Cavanagh's next piece


A Dangerous Place

I left the dope and the booze behind.
The script was rewritten
from handshakes and smiles
to snakes in an alley:
coiled, patient, camoflaged:
the world is a dangerous place.
Forgotten men huddle in doorways
on a slippery unsaddled night.
Despair creeps in
like a hunter on the point,
and I am the sucrrying prey.

I have counted without effort
half the streetlights out.
As November with its jaundice withers
I hear the hiss and rattle near,
and I am the scurrying prey.

I left the dope and the booze behind.
And I scurry into shadows everywhere.

To the top of this pageTo the top of this page