Poem : Imagined Innings of an Old Croft

Imagined innings of an Old Croft

By Ian Colville

You see the once white walls
rain-washed below the red and tin roof
infested with a myriad tiny holes

made by inter-stellar moths feeding
on the corrugated fabric
and leaving behind their corrosive jaws

a powdered debris
of oxidised metal dust
that runs like rust in a drain.

The holes mysteriously appear
to let in the light, showing
only inside if it's sunning outside

and where, in that light as it enters in streamers,
like slim, beaming elevators
in a scene from a motion picture;

multi-hued Insuraliens are scotty'd to earth
from their hovering ship,
unseen; it's a low budget

and the birds make a pew of the ridge tiles,
grey pigeons dropping their guard,
heads on chests; sentries my arse!

and you really can’t tell
from looking intent,
whether croft is descending in decay

or earth is slowly ascending wreckage,
crawling towards boarded up sash windows,
guarding either side the open door

as if they've taken it under the armpits;
two belted policemen
arresting a drunk, with his tongue hanging out,

an enticing gustatory receptor,
stimulated by your visit
to the nerve centre of salivation,

enticing, entrancing, in shadows dancing;
and so you take incautious step,
while bantam Insuraliens suddenly disappear;

elevator beams retract on cords of light
and the shadow cast by a vast, monolithic craft
drifts overhead, shutting out the sight.

Ian Colville writes poems under the pseudonym of iainthepict, a nom de plume for his on-line presence. He's been writing poetry for the last forty years or so. Read more of Iainthepict's works at iainthepict.blogspot.com