A57
Drug route, gun route-
nappies, cartons and bottles
below griffs and hags.
The moor a midden of shit, ash and offal,
the dead seeping into drains.
And by a cairn a sheep slate-grey
hard up against a gale,
and the road east brake-light red
sliding down the valley’s throat
to Sheffield.
Ian Clarke was born Wisbech, Cambridgeshire and lives in Harrogate, North Yorkshire and is published widely in magazines and anthologies. Recent collections include A Slow Stirring from Indigo Dreams Press and BARD 132, a broadsheet in a completely different register available from Atlantean Publishing.