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Aidan Semmens, In Tombland

reticulated tracery, quarried
panes, innocent
of colour
                 flushwork
grimy with particulates

poor soul
                  at large
in dark alley
ways of intellectual
dead
        ends

tired & foxed, shall we
say £20?
                  look up
for a patch of blue
and a primitive
                             grotesque
on the cinema tower

no human
                   experience
without thought?
no learning
without
               language?
to give a life
of anxiety
                   & courage
for a such a mis-
conception

touch the decaying
stone
          work
smell the pages

a rigorous, restless
intelligence, end-
                               stopt

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