I live in a fragile house
Rain blisters the windows
Wind wolfs at the casements
Doors burst into their frames
Electricity surges like a wildcat
Scratching out filaments and fuses
Gas sleeps rough in Victorian corners
The boiler chokes and heaves like a keeled beast
With its burden trodden into the muddy road
Beside which we freeze, refugees from sleep
Awaiting the milkman’s sodding whistle
That at any other dawn would mean
Execution by a drunk firing squad
But today signals the all clear
Even if it’s Lloyd Webber
He twitters, a distant hit
From Cats or Les Mis
This first appeared on the blog Poetry Shed with thanks to poet Abegail Morley
Mark Fiddes 