The 12.51 to Preston

Sitting in a rickety

White conservatory in Leeds
Talking to an umbrella plant
About zen philosophy,

The twelve fifty one to Preston
Is this what the world expected.

The recovering man sits
On the phone to benefits
Poison fossilised in grey snakes
The mill's curse, scarring these hills,
Gap toothed half literate crack piping

Meat packer stamps his feet in threat

Stowed crow bar in the back pack

For opening doors, the politic

Is this what the world expected.

Make a bare room a seminar

Who's doing the throttling and how

The proper method of crop rotation

Palid, with a handsome visage

Rarely visited by smiles

One of his eyes wanders, the son

Oh him, with the racist Staf.

There are no songs

Of how the steam milled killed

This wet aired town.

Is this what the world expected.

After two shifts the soldier will return

From taking all of the five kids to Mosque

Ferry the recovering man for cash

Like basket weavers who borrow cane
Horror dawns over his jaw on the stair

Witness now to the impotence of serfs

Alone with the pots

Is this what the world expected.

Crack concrete to fit fresh pipe

Shift grit in sacks and back

For aggregates till the clock matches

All of that sweat
To cut the ageing radiators out
And create something better
Wait, for the fruit fly to drink
Gas off the fresh ink

Is this what the world expected.

Sitting in a rickety

White conservatory in Leeds

Talking to an umbrella plant

About zen philosophy

Is this what the world expected of me.