The dust cellar

Under the bent ends
of steel criss-cross fence we slid
on our bellies
pink fish slipping through the net
into the gasp of a park, and ran.
The dead rotting leather-lace corpses on our feet
gorged themselves on mud and crushed seeds
stuffed their cavities with it as we thumped and slid
through the slur of a Wednesday afternoon
away from the limp, bundled uniforms

We fled deeper into
the dark invite of the wooded cleft
We tore through
the wine red mist of autumn
with kicks and yelps of savagery
clambered down and between roots and dells
where the flint earth floor spattered our ankles
and climbed where angry bark left dry grazes
until we broke through the pins of holly
to secret fields where we found

a Bloody Dangerous Thing
a coiled machine in the sheaves of rain
We plundered its
springs and screws, its padding
sat amongst its rings and hinges
free from the cluster of organisation
anarchic in our open, roofless church
untouched by the enemy, untied from weaponry
unbound by the slavery of what is called beauty
This is what I call beautiful

Years have travelled
past my evening garden since then
I beat together
those shoes and scrub their soles
The dust billows off them and glistens
in the spotlight, settling in my hands and throat
I bottle it in empty wine bottles that I duly stow
in my cellar, so that the flavour of the dust
ripens and begins to glow with the fires of age
This is what I call treasure