“I’ve been trying to say this for years
And find it like a spider on my lip:
Arriving, there’s a padlock on the door
Protecting nothing but a window
In one wall, and a double bed
Complete with holes—none of which I need.
My agent provides this free. The squalor
And the shit coming for me: hurt dogs
Squeal in the street below; Vespas spew smoke
Through every crack; and prostitutes repeat
Their life, life-long story in chopped up verse.
“I drop on the bed after a whole year travelling
— Noise, decay, clamour at shutters
As I sleep, and fan blades above me swing
In great circles
“At the centre of the world,
Two halves scraping unequal edges with each other.”
Stephen J. Williams 