Unfurl from Life’s Chaos

Kate Meyer-Currey
February 2022

Boyz in the hood (Seagullz)

Roosting houses adjust
ruffled feathers as night
wind settles into a drab
slaty unfledged morning
perched on roof-ridged
streets preening oily tiles
gazing beadily under sly
hoodied windows ready
to swoop and dive bomb
scudding drifts of ruffled
passers-by in slick conker
coats seed-pod bags held
close as anxiety’s groping
pickpocket fingers infiltrate
tight wadded linings to find
guarded wallet hearts and
fillet them like mackerel so
folded banknote hopes fall
like ash keys into rockpool
puddles and spent desire’s
small change is flotsam on
the pavement’s receding
shore where messages in
bottles are washed up as
soggy newspaper in dregs
of diamond white where the
burglar breeze fumbles for
dogends in rockpool puddles
these artful dodgers flock in
their identity parade slung
along pylon wires sagging
like grubby urban arctic
trackies with trainer talons
clenched bling beaks ready
to peck out eyes misted by
rose-tinted visions slash at
turned cheeks and stab the
innocence of unwatched
backs with the smash and
grab of disillusion out of
the range of CCTV sunset
as day ebbs they jeer and
scatter on gusting wings
up dusk’s blind alleys as
their catcalls fade to grey
under the quick change of
creeping balaclava night

What the fox says

king darkour broke and famous

solo mission shadeux lone wolf

junglist laneway vanimal allcity

wildstyle urban explorer gangster

hand canmanship painter’s touch

spraymanship saber scriber swag

tagger sticker-bomber subway slasher

flowers in the attic guerilla gardener

vandal stick contested expressionist

streetpop backjump wallassassin

takes greediocracy fowl down throws

up public art no permission call of duty

realtalk writer neva crossed out neva

copped the lock brimwolf and listenbird

bluntman and chronic roll with punches

silent burner wallflowers keep it on wax

Chrysalids

These dormant bodies are
not homeless people, rather
they are pupae cocooned in
chrysalis sleeping-bags, who
lie, curled in doorways or the
safety of urban burrows, to
hide by night and be overlooked
by day. They are easy prey
for lepidopterists of the local
authority who are tasked with
catching them and placing
them in captivity, ensnared on
housing lists or caged in hostels.
Traps are laid with the bait of
Universal Credit or the sugar
water hope of housing behind
the bright lure of plate glass
doors that promise a better
future. All they have to do is
present for an appointment
say the officials as they sit
at computers ignoring them
as they hurl themselves, like
moths baffled by daylight’s
demands, against the rigid
threshold of expectations.
No wonder they crawl back to
the safety of pavements and
stairwells. They are a species
apart, these so called ‘rough
sleepers’ defined by an alien
taxonomy, classified by their
failure to fit social norms that
require them to unfurl from life’s
chaos like butterflies to suck
proffered nectar from bright-
petalled meetings with daisy-
nodding professionals who sit
with clipboards, shaking heads
in resignation as they document
yet another ‘no show’, ‘did not
engage’ or ‘verbally abusive to
staff and escorted from building’.
Soon they will be extinct: pinned
on baize in neat wooden drawers,
proof that pest control policy was
indeed targeted and effective.
Still they lie, shrivelled and rotting
in the harsh climate of social
change: just so much insect-life,
filed and forgotten.

◊

Kate Meyer-Currey moved to Devon in 1973. A varied career in frontline settings has fuelled her interest in gritty urbanism, contrasted with a rural upbringing, often with a slipstream twist. Since September 2020 she has had over a hundred poems published in print and online journals, both in the UK and internationally. Her first chapbook ‘County Lines’ (Dancing Girl Press) comes out this Autumn. Her second Cuckoo’s Nest’ (Contraband Books) is due in February 2022.