Hide and Seek

Words are lost, like
Smoke twisting through fingers
Ribbons of spiralling shadow
Shy and retreating,
To be too eager,
To move too quickly
Is a repellent magnet;
The spectre in your periphery
That invites your eye
And retreats from your gaze –
How coy and playful they are
These experts of hide and seek.

© 2017 Angie Kirby

Open Air Gentleman’s Club

This song / poem was written for the Grangetown Gardens Project, a collaboration between Art Shell & Cardiff University. It is inspired by the outdoor drinking clubs that began in 1893, as a result of restricted Sunday licensing:

What could a man want more
Than the freedom to drink outdoors?
To sip bitter ale and belch and regale
His mates with dirty old tale?

But then come the boys in blue
And old toffs that don’t have a clue
Who pontificate, and sneer and berate
The lives of the Grangetown crew

But under the shadow of night
They meet by the train tracks and fight
They fight for their right, to drink out at night
Singing down with those boys in blue!

© 2015 Angie Kirby