The Dead Lands

Some words, put into an order I find pleasing.

The Dead Lands.

The dead came, unwanted and unwilling to leave.

Gauzy groups hanging out at the corner of our collective eye

We cross the street, looking sideways and suspicious.

They wait outside the shops

Never buying anything

Unsettling rare shoppers.

no one knows how to move them on.

The Vicar says it's the wages of sin

And pretends not to see

As he lines his pockets with good throwing stones.

Cobweb kids line potholed roads

few can afford to travel.

They wait to dart out

in hope of a ball.

Bright wreaths of cow-parsley, ivy and wild garlic

Serve to ward away unwelcome in-laws

And in the playgrounds, by the hanging chains

(the decaying remains of swings)

The grandparents, filmy and sad,

Wait for living children, we are too frightened to let out.