disheartened

Disheartened


The chocolate river is dry and the German
tourists have gone home and last years cherries
hang unpicked as do almond nuts that are also
full of worms, and who says grass isn’t sweet?
The sun is a yellow ring on a blue pale sky,
disillusioned as a 30 watt bulb in a room
with faded wallpaper, at a run down hotel which
calls itself Bellevue; last stop before sleeping
rough. Nothing is more abject than an out of
season tourist town, sleepless shopkeeper and
bored waiters, even the flowers in the park are
grey; and except for a couple of retired seagulls,
birds have flown to Africa and will not return
before spring rain falls.