THE COURAGE OF THE FLEA

young man on a silver crutch
leans
up
against
shoeszones laminated blue plastic facade

cocky as a tom cat
greeting
i cant see who

like the worlds his oyster
like the suns out 
like its los angeles
like hes steve freaking mcqueen
with a car accident knee

when all it is is londons cement floptide

but
theres
a
streetside
fog
here
that smells like life smells
that smells like childhood smells

smells like story books 
and adventure tv
where every kid has a torch
in their backpack
and a reason to use it too

and if you shut your eyes
there is almost no armour
there
at
all
and you can almost
see the stars you are
see the clockeye walls
see the courage of the flea

and hes probably ok
whoever the hell he is
mr hopalong by the shoezone
he is facing the day
with his head up
in
another
uk
morning
divided for conquer
and identical to itself

the morning is 
just another 
polaroid vignette
shining
darkly
in
a
market stall puddle

and we are all running
like flood alert rats are running
with 
the courage of the flea
thats
uncommented
unnoticed
every newspaper day

and the headline bile
is autogenerated offshore
and i wonder of the bees
the courage of the bees

and what shall we be
when they
lay
down
their
stripes forever
in one last pollen dusk

and
will
i
be
old
and
gnarly
one day
and tell a grandniece or two
how
i
saw
bees
coming and going that summer
from
the
hive
under
my back step

how i saw them come home
on the magnet lines
when the sun fell
in that long gone summer
when
i
still drank
still ran 
with the courage
of the flea

and i file 
more nothing-almost-something now
into another binary crevice
in
the
dirt online

i write and file
under the frozen birdshit faces
of all those statues
of all those dead men
mounted on dead horses
on
all
those
mighty
plinths 
high
above the fag butt gutters
where plastic bags
fly like art
on groundwind

i write and file posey
in the grime of the mirror world
we made in our unthought image

its pandoras echo chamber
built of wire and fools gold

so i write and file soft reports
disposable and unrushed
like
li po
and
buckowski 
setting fire to their folded posey
by
the
river
sharing a bottle
in their shirtsleeves
watching
the
drains
overspill

li po buckowski  
lazy enough
to
wait
wait
wait

and wonder
how is it people get worked up
enough
to war

or a backstab hashtag

but fail
to see
the courage of the flea
the leaving of the bee

and theyre blindsided easily
by the 
shoezones blue laminated facade
and
they
dig
deeper
into
the
broadband riverways
dense with
fragile ships
flying flags
of
new shoes
and
photoshopped abs

from library--of--babel.blogspot.co.uk