Boys On The Block Poem by Sheena Blackhall

The High Rise block in Anytown
Sucks up folk like a straw

It stands in the dusk
Like a long tall glass of fizzy water

Its tenants are bubbles
Breathing their hellos
Their ahs and oos of tenderness or spite
Or plain dog-tired defeat

Into the backdropp of silence
Four teenagers down on the pavement
Under the slit-eyed street light
Sit like dumped sacks

A girl with a billowing skirt
Cuts a small gash in their thoughts
Their words spill out like oats
The dumb-ass dark will swallow