Sharp up by the dog-tired
Londis; wedged-in
By funky Biffa Bins
And that flaking breeze-block wall;
Jammed and jimmied in behind
Broken fence slats, mossy with
Creosote, is a fructuous lee;
A wind-shadow –
A ghost-less liminal nook –
Where the spirits can’t be arsed;
Where gaze falls,
Yet just sees
The lottery scratch-cards
And deals on chilled Monster.
Yet, for all this, it is

A corner of fecundity;
Here, a strange loam builds –
Fuelled by unloved chaff;
The part-gnawed crusts, damp
Of a once-mighty Ginsters;
Sleazy scalenes of a BLT half;
No B, just T, these days,
Squalid off-cuts of
This and that,
Tumbled to the floor, indelicately
Cobbed, from a rattling Fiesta –
To settle with Batter bits,
Gum wrappers, Stella cans
From yesteryear, jewels
Of chipped bottle glass,
And meaty faggots of wind-rolled leaves.

In this ill-favoured sod, where
Biodiversity meets perversity,
Time acts patiently, un-judging;
Allied by micro-beasts –
That chomp, and puke and fart –
To make this urban grow-bag,
Where, mulched by half-chewed
Kebab barf, *those* iceberg shreds
And a hospitable crack
At the wall base, and –
Nourished by chilli sauce
And malodorous Mango cola –
Up rises a juvenile ash,
Racing for the sun
Past the Biffas and soffits and such –
Levering the mortar and breeze blocks
Apart; bent on earning an ASBO.