Villon in Millerton by James Norcliffe

for Leicester Kyle



1

a plank bed in a gully

and a woman there with

a buckled mouth my hand

plunged deep in her pigfern



turpentine and tea-tree

the sour-smoke smell

of damp coal in the scuttle

and flat beer on the bench



once I stood so tall on

a stolen Triumph

my hair streamed behind

like a thousand freedoms



now I stand two miles

above flatlanders

planchette by James Norcliffe

at night the rats
are bigger than rats

they race back and forth
like typewriters
across the lath and plaster

like good little rats
they have taken their poison
and now grow large with thirst

where are their pretty girlfriends
or love, the magician?

cannot one of these
offer them solace or slake?

oh qwerty they clatter
oh qwerty qwerty

as the night grows hard round them
desperate in their