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A Staircase in a Foreign Country

It wanders up from stonework riverwalls
And the old town’s cobbled lanes –
From tourist traps and pork knees,
Sweet lager and plastic half-crowns –
A timorous, frayed-ragged stairway
With the best seats in the house,
A skybound place to level out.

In the market marble coolness
Of a new town office courtyard,
Skateboarding kids work magic feats,
Fleet foot street artists with coterie crowds
And no box office, ticking off the seconds –
Anticipation of each moment –
Ollie, bail and second chance.

There seems stability in the hills;
Peace at the precipice, a house of God,
Veranda over the roof-tiled canopy,
Where sunrise tries to catch one’s shadow
And send it out across the skyline.
Fingertip metronome counts off the beat
For skaters in the scarlet fire of dawn.

Dear John, I’m leaving and taking the cats with me.

I never thought you’d say that it was so;
That with our finance you had been gazundering,
You went far further than I thought you’d go.

There were irregularities in our cash flow –
From our accounts, you swine, you had been plundering.
I never thought you’d say that it was so.

Oh yes, you’ve been found out! And now I know!
Just in the off-chance that you were wondering,
You went far further than I thought you’d go.

But now the acrimony ‘gins to grow,
The forecast of my soul predicts great thundering,
I never thought I’d say that it was so.

Our matrimony dealt a fatal blow,
Your plan was proof, aside from your small blundering;
You went far further than I thought you’d go.

So now you’re leaving, taking half my dough,
The alimony cheques will keep us sundering,
I never thought they’d say that it was so;
You went far further than I thought you’d go.

Thanks,

Dave