a shammus staking out history,

death’s sleuth. The past has bequeathed itself,

its deceiving legacy of meanings.

Here is the evidence, thronging the cramped,

provincial streets – the line of a wall,

family remembrance, an ancient name.

Before terraces and villas, before

canal and railway, under pavements

and metalled roads, beneath fields is lost heathland,

a forsaken brook. There are only stones

and ghosts and the heart’s testimony – childhood,

ambition, emptiness.

a shammus staking out history,

death’s sleuth. The past has bequeathed itself,

its deceiving legacy of meanings.

Here is the evidence, thronging the cramped,

provincial streets – the line of a wall,

family remembrance, an ancient name.

Before terraces and villas, before

canal and railway, under pavements

and metalled roads, beneath fields is lost heathland,

a forsaken brook. There are only stones

and ghosts and the heart’s testimony – childhood,

ambition, emptiness.

Fanny Adams' grave, Alton cemetery, Hampshire

After the fluorescent shops and the snatched music,

the side street was damp and dark -

but a bag of chips and a manipulative adult

made the emptiness freedom.

Waterways were trawled and the usual,

time-dishonoured suspects questioned.

Down river, high tides returned her nine year old body.

The funeral cortège was a carriage and horses

and the local press was effulgent.

But gossip condemned her single mother,

living in a hostel on benefit.

The killer lived two floors down,

an estranged father of daughters -

a violent drunk, unemployed, unschooled.

Victim, mother and murderer

threaten the equivocal city.

Losers and losing

challenge its achievements.

Death is only one result of murder.

Remember sweet Fanny Adams – mutilated,

immortalised, profaned  unthinkingly!

The murder and rape of children

seem beyond words,  understanding,  iniquity

- and another’s lack of love or the  means to love

is out of our  grasp, lost beyond finding.