tame the tigers of Eloysia

i wrote a poem
four steps beneath the catawall,
living, flaccid, tremoring, small.
i wrote a poem to dignify the drawl,
catalogue the call.
fake plans
that made you what you are today,
that broke the back of every book
you were reading.
and it told
of you
like a dream song, you flew
into the arms of saviours and pity
and out again, to the stench
of a neon city,
found what you named love,
lost it again, through endless barriers
and time, you fell again,
withstanding not so much as the doormouse's breath
on tattered cheeks. I discovered you,
tiny and incomplete in a window's archway,
shaking off the dust from noon time.
you looked, my eyes were cracking up
in front of you,
your eyes, blanched, unfocussed,
drew back what little sustenance was left
and fled across the room to the red ancient hallway.

we are amazed, it is true,
to find the acre of challenge at our hips,
and flights of pigeons mark the way
for ever ending states of bliss.
round town and down
and around,
pharmacy stare
from a derelict bridge.
this tongue is slender
to slip between the bricks
of a fortress wall,
and a girl's dress that in ripples
caught the sneezing,
became,
well, a prophetess
of nothing,
and the poem is undone,
immaculate,
and breeding.