Seven AM - Mansfield Rd

7.00am?Mansfield Road.

A City much bigger than it seems.
A City that never sleeps but only dreams.
Catnapping - crocodile style.
Teeth sharp - ready to bite,
They crush, rip and tear,
Wandering minstrels and mistresses
Of shallow, stifling night.

A confluence of concrete mass and alleys,
To another of cars, shops and brittle neon light.
7.00am - The dark season.
The merged flirt, with the submerged,
Day seeks to vanquish night,
But the shadows still linger.
All I hear is laughter, laughter in the dark - HERE.

A street girl haggard beyond her tender years.
Fragile, delicate, damaged - imperfect
The telling lesions on her face smile back.
She doesn't, she gestures -
Bones pawned to Dr. H
Newsagents open now - but no papers sold yet
- Only cider and brew.

Mansfield Road begins to throb,
In the morning an artery for the city,
Late night a vein sapping life away.
The dossers still clutch their cans in hand,
As the waking city calls suburbia to its rescue.
Lifeblood pumping back from the outskirts,
The night shift ends and another day begins.