This old villa, long abandoned,
ringed by a crumbling wall,
unkempt trees pushing out,
bursting the seems
of the respectable street,
defiantly shows its rags, its decay.
It’s already given up
the mad business of getting on
and surrendered to
the fearless grasses
that reclaim the lost time
and the nights of the drunken moon.
The world spins on and on
around it
like a hurt animal
licking over its wounds,
villages, towns, cities,
itch upon itch,
the beat men reeling in the gutters
and the multiplied fevers.
But the villa just takes
all that clamour to be something
deep into the wide leaves
of the banana tree,
the long buried stepping stones,
the slipping tiles,
the strangled gutters,
and sends out the cicadas’ song
louder than anything you’ve heard.
Copyright Ricky Barrow 2014
