‘The writ of the assassin’ rules
These streets, these pavements, these walls.
A tip-off from a fellow at work perhaps,
With his ever-watchful and craven eyes.
It was in August ’72,
When things were really bad.
Mills and factories declining
Into a necropolis state.
An ad hoc judgement handed down
On a sweltering summer night
As the boys bore witness to a procession of death.
A ‘quiet, inoffensive, man’.
A casualty of blood libel.
Found dumped in a shop doorway
With a multitude of knife wounds.
‘I don’t know why anybody would want to kill him’.
These streets have hardened and narrowed.
Suddenly restricting the flow of blood and oxygen.
Strangling the life out of the city itself.
Dr Gareth Mulvenna 