Leo by Harry Ledgerwood

We call him raver on the streets

because he’s mad with the disco of time and rain.

When it pours, he lifts the covers off his waxy lugs

and lets them grow like palm leaves shading the seep

with thum dum accord of trilling feet soaking

Buchanan’s concrete. Careless. Wonder upon.

In white he is beating past worry. Gone

to each streetlight, a junky Gene Kelly

high on the perils of wasted hours screened

on your second-hand telly last night.

_________________

Harry Ledgerwood is a poet and fiction writer from Ayr, Scotland. His work has been published in Irish Pages, Oxford Review of Books, Gutter Magazine, and an anthology with the Hampden Collection. He was shortlisted for the Dart Prize and the Jon Stallworthy Prize. He holds an MSt in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford.