Wasteground

An acrid wind blows

Through this wilderness of bits,

This Golgotha of dead vehicles.

Their reared up bodies

Frozen stiff in their last agonies.

Here the trees have trunks of wet iron

And leaves of matted wire.

The grass is filled with iron spikes

And what flowers there are

Are withered in their sockets.

In the yellow water close by

A can floats through a skin of oil

Seeping out from the poisoned land.

All the birds here have clockwork voices

And beaks sharp as rusted razors.

All the men have eyes

Filled with the venom of small steel rings,

The sun here is a bland eye of glass

That floats through clouds of sulphur gas.