the cloak

mid the grey desolation

of a rainswept dublin street

colour tore my vision

from dreariness and fret

a cloak of ebon silk

lay crumpled in the mud

meshed with silver hues

and ochre tainted gold

a spider's web of threads

sent blood among the sheen

woven so by fingers

with a knowledge that is gone

and knowing came upon me

in a drumroll of heart beats

the lost cloak of poetry

the mantle of john keats

and hunger came upon me

i snatched at it in greed

but it fluttered and it melted

into concrete into clay