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