I hear a sound from round the corner People have flocked across the foyer A drunk man starting up an altercation With a library user Ripped from the user by security Flung out in threats, taunts and gestures The angered victim left recovering with concerned onlookers One of whom posits an answer: "Turnstiles! To protect the space from abusers!" I catch it twice but sort of tentative, Then repeated a lot surer: "We need some sort of turnstile system! Entrance retracted from non-members! Turnstiles!" Drunks rain down, collapsing on us, Daring absurdities out of us Since when was someone's member status A sign of benign inner purpose? They're vetted only for names and address Tabs kept only on the books they've debted And we're not a Tube station Or a public lavatory

I was digging holes in a plot of soil, Rooting out tangleweed. She had found a frog, was herding it about me Was dribbling it between her feet. And it let off a noise – shrill, loud, sustained – About as far from a 'ribbit' as a tin whistle a bassoon, She weaved it shrieking round a gauntlet of clump grass and thistle And I felt sick to see the glee on her face, so I acted By scaring her away with a shuffle of my foot, Scooping the harassed amphibian on my spade. I tossed it into a nearby bush And left it up to God. Then I moved from tangleweed, started on Alpinum seeds, Then she caught a bird for me. I think it was a blue tit – Pale breasted, round, petite – Specks of blood on its feathers. She dropped it on my lavenders, Where it lay near-motionless. Only on closer inspection Did I notice its small, round beak Opening and closing weakly – very quiet. She had crushed its throat in her jaws, Rendering throat useless as an air duct Which meant that the blue tit was suffocating, While she, in fascination, looked, And I found this quite distressing. So I trod as hard as I could on the blue tit's head. A sort of mercy killing – a quicker death. And though it took two stomps to crush it dead, My hope is it pipped suffocation. Because that was the intention. I went black inside, feeling pretty sordid The blue tit was suffocating. It made my day morbid. So I went back inside and had a cup of tea.

A man is spying on his old house In the city's ruins where a bypass carves out A remembered hillside; where St. Mary's RC Has been bulldozed; where the blocks of flats And housing estates, where he'd meet up With his old mates, have since become Bordered off by green fences Locked behind green metal gates There are spaces that were once navigable Now just familiar. Under the ring-road, Twists and dips splintered, disfigured Into treacherous configurations. A house-side displaying a jolly Santa – The bizarre slogan (always was) That he invariably shops in Hillfields – Near where the man is spying on his old house, Listening to old songs through his earphones And taking some heart from rubble-conquering icons: A Philips shop and a Ford dealer. Recreating at the corners of his eyes And being mournful in the soft and pleasant ways. Pacing Vine Street. Being inconspicuous. Collecting a glimpse, with each pass, of that old house, Whose walls have been pebble-dashed since he moved out.

I wish I wasn't here, but awake In the middle of the night Listening to what shouldn't be a fox Cat played backwards Jeered by tropical birds Through a snout Shouldn't be a fox.