Words by Mark Daniel Osborne
The smell is first.
No change, and no change
for the homeless.
Big Issue,
cashless purchase,
cashlessed purchased?
Manicured blue-collars,
hi-vis,
Add coiffe to the cost of living?
Asked a Golden Stranger for the cheapest beer.
“You remember,” I heard, stopped.
“You’re a member?” she said.
I remembered her, but two years past.
Confused and impressed, but then made sense of.
Energised her with humour, then ordered.
A bird sits upon a stool
Waiting for fries…
Smoking, supping, watching
Like the city I’d left
Changed yet not
diminished by its familiar rot
Growth within, cracked outside,
Smouldering, smelly, caught with time.
Familiar, because it is mine.
