2011 - Wordpress Wordpress

							poems 2005 – 2011

by

Michael Egan
for all ex hover speed customers

the composition is a flower
seen from her window she is a girl
herself or another yellow rose
planes        those new machines
cut through skies        untouched by this composition
men rest against engines as sleeping women
waiting for foreign newspapers
to reveal tomorrow’s innovation
or the news that rotating blades should stay silent
another flower wilts in a glass vase
beside the makeshift bed
returning through the crowd       he brushes against
the memory of her scent and later
places an order over the phone
a hand alone without any knowledge
that in the hollow of the valley
there is nothing coloured as yellow or
so vibrant as her hair     neither will
anything feel the need to wilt.
blast door
articles blocked          the shower
water waiting to flow into the far end
it’s all the gradient’s fault       and the problem
of physics means           that I scoop up pools
of water          return that water whence it came

the simple thing to do would be to
jolt the earth
         as their feet press down still gripping
         tickets and watch them give in to laws
         they doubt.
botanical garden
audiences were thrilled by its anti-establishment
energy
a fear of worldly things
misfortune this remedy is blushed
who reads that fiction
of that world
half sunlight     half blinds

a spaceship of silence      and fools
coming down from this earlier
their
errant
travelling in search of adventure
until it rests on the bench

that quest is: just look how our
rate compares
a golden fleece pink meat made lost

develop discussions about homosocial desire
even here
voices disappear
in the noise

start home in your car
treading on england’s thousand yellow petals
      like in the picture
these books are gorgeous
each page is a work

of art in itself
for itself

in the breeze      lifted
we support the game from grass roots up
until its coughing    end

the same if the pages
were spread and the form filled.
drifting manifesto

glassy eyes sent for deeper rest
not for new tears or those long since shed
and rallying speeches lurched
into favour and words following
twisting steps became embroiled

vocal though less acknowledged
a weaker triumph wearing his
wreath not in shame or anger but
for vacancy and good men to cheer
damp covers the television

some reflection of a coming liberal
century though winter had passed
unnoticed     ice fragile wait the branches
now light layered and leaf full
and goodness knew pleasure
by measurement and specification

clarity coherence and o yes
consistency a distance trudged
to beacons by gerald of wales
beneath omnipotent night never lifting
calling out for service a doubt remained

to billow they heard a tune softly
played      a stretched madrigal of
too many tones each similar chunk
a piece of the glass globe discarded
to reveal sheets of scrubbed paper

against the chequered belvedere tiles
and he there hung the breathing dirge
so just nights were as nought
arched to fault and solace not in
ruins weak men claim against fate.
atoll

a number
like a crucifix hangs
at face value
the bed is yellow and blue
swedish
sex is reactionary
moved to tears
got what she takes
tempo
no great sensitivity
listen you should bottle the pacific
one island at a time

the attempt of all the UN’s yawns
adds up to the sleepless
sex-heavy woman
in the lower bunk
fiction
is to order over the phone
for your daughter
yearly extraction
it reflects the history and the present
on the roads of london
a man hanged
swill dropped

a lavatory ended up on his head
aubergine chilli is spooned into denim
they pick it up
and in that light it’s worth saving
the first ten minutes are written off
as mistakes

we settle
forget difficulty
movement comes later
and it is always
away
as distant as time scrubbed borders
or as near as the sadness we find in maps.
turnstile

leaving the bus a slight rain and
an author-activist’s son fall
ceasefires stutter trying to
say take care to a girl as she
adjusts the waistband of her
pinstriped pants

it turns as many as four times
before I can pass a none-biblical number
I am conscious of the distance between us
it seems safer in a tank than
in a courtyard despite the view
of the sea and the hills
full of elevated threats
liquid becomes the weapon water
not of life but of something else
as yet unconfirmed
we fill plastic bags and lose our laptops
even on the pages of electronic secrets
there are revelations in storage
these words wait
for the setting down of wheels
on tarmac or lips on lips
a shield is held out in an attacking
gesture unexpected defeat delivered
and in a toilet two strangers sleep
together waiting for the sea to wash
into their prison
yet what prisons can withstand hurricanes?
murderers are given voices and hang
with life in front of the camera
the silent image suggests nobility
not crime or old fashioned chutzpah
crimes differ from the scarring of
artwork to the duplicity of an MP
swingers parties may or may not
have happened though she wears
different styles of sunglasses each day
that confirms it her knowledge of style
is a sign of her incorruptible nature
and she walks amongst the judged
taking note of the pleats in their trousers
now panic controls the picture
because the key clicks and does not turn
there is a pressure against the door
and darkness within in that moment
I whisper her name
using the same words in every piece
dilutes the affect shadows become
light       whispers are shouts and if
cats talk it’s only because someone
wrote them that way
plans are made and decisions are given
a date     a stamp is rolled across plastic bags
in answer you say france a pause then it was ok

for a whole nation to be described
by that statement no sign of burning
no mark of rising nationalism or hint
of the truth that cheese could be
strong or weak I’ve never been there
it is a collage of images moving with pace
labels and icons mix together like tesco
merging with sony or british airways
and if one of them crumbles they’ll
all fall to enron
crumbles like a mint or teeth slowly
turning to boredom say crumble again
and admit that you are creating the
shadow of poetry that these stanzas
are collections of words not meanings
and somewhere rain falls heavier
the impossible is vague and
only suggested at cities shake
whilst their cathedrals of glass quiver
stock still and stuck in sand standing in a bay
a child with more passion than sense
waits for the right moment the exact second
and when it comes instead of coaxing it to him
he waits and does not tremble at the idea of light.
science just before sunset
and for movement let it be aside
if it happens that with a flick
time recreated is put aside
and born anew
then what’s the matter there
it comes and goes anyhow
all into the ground all out
some odd dance organised and fluid

below a hill aside
my remembered scene slight crack
in the window mothers meeting
wax on wine bottle open courtyard
this was a moment unnoticed
passed but many a man believes
it to be breath breathed aside

and into air it goes lost to fade
not to its own ground solid firm
bad for the business of farming no crop
just that one seed set aside
and left without expecting
fruit or bloom or root
staying in its own happening

what can it matter that aside
all our moments of now unmoving
or of being moved along on journeys home
they with a slight flick in a bottle
create the first spark made second
believing that aside us can exist another
unconnected by memory containing its own.

won’t it grow and push against the flimsy glass
as sand falls easily chasing time dropping
to mark its passing and aside
the new bright moment
of our new evening sun tingeing
clouds in fiery vibrancy
there may be a darker seed

what matter is it not mine
not of this layer to dig
would be to wish to overturn the soil
would reveal only a new layer
of grass         aside
a new field beneath a new sun
and turning soil still and on
the thing repeats itself

what is it to wonder to expect mountains
to contain this selfish moment
newborn everything recreated.
it is fine and well
and all for the mind’s good
to remember            aside
other memories that this is how
it happened how from one core
of lightless stillness came layers
these mantles to be cracked and rooted out

so for fear let it be set aside
with all nerves for tampering and shame of it
let the bottle be laid out and the shadow
ignited within mountainous walls
let the air through which memory passes
on its way to solid soil be enough
to keep this single layer apart

becoming movement away
taking the moment’s mind aside
not the horizon’s scope
or how it mimics an end but aside
to a singularity of bliss ignorance
of being within a mountain
where no finger craves no switch to flick.
for the welsh poet & his late gift
in response to john james

& variance & variance does
it’s all about short lines       o
melody found again
          as in the cinema
          or the metropolitan café

there must be memories        of his father
stealing & escaping
down some steep road          below a harbour waits

in the hall       this line of judgement
builds itself      higher
        now I see myself
        my collar seems flimsy
        & his false promise
        his faint appreciation is justified.
spun man
my lover has made the norns drunk
wined them and dined them
now they sleep satisfied and dum
on the settee bought by her in-laws


fate

it has been like this since that first ravaging settler built his home
raised up walls and gave the island a new language as his good wife slept

misty lust swept across the virgin land he made his farm on
still godless the wastes beyond the wooded hills tempted him

on mounting those peaks he found better soil sturdier trunks of good oak
and in the dark forest were wild women with wild hair never sleeping grinning

to take the soil to take trees to take wild women was all the same
good mud in his hands good wood at his feet and laughing women all around him

between the warm walls of his home raised with his own ringed arms
his good wife slept his children slept and his clothes were laid out for his return


necessity

when it happened it happened with urgency
firstly against a wall her moans recorded by cruel fate conspiring with modernity
a slip of frantic fingers on the keypad of a phone the spinners listening already
so it slept as hidden as that ancient tree tended to and woken by greed and latent need

when it happened again it happened with greater urgency
secondly in a car park against an unfamiliar wall sudden tears sudden guilt
and then the comfort of two bodies entwined unaware they were spun thread entangled
so it slept and would not wake so it woke and would not sleep

with each passing of her perfume his greed stirred
with each glimpse of her love for pleasure his need was reared
the spinners went on toiling grinning
she slept on ever peaceful undisturbed

being

love born and coaxed into life urged those weird sisters to laughter
she heard them one night woke and recognised their joy
was careful to tiptoe downstairs to prepare their feast
when they came to her house they were drunk on the fate she had played
in awe of her they listened as with one voice she mocked man’s need
with softer tones she blamed it all on man’s greed
and all this while her blind cuckolded husband slept

she poured more wine put out more overflowing dishes of desserts
and near raw meats with bread to mop up juices both bitter and sweet
she saw how they held the root of her blind lover’s fate a brittle thread
and seeing them drowsy beckoned them to lay their excess to bed
sleeping they let go of what had been what is and what may never be
she wound the yarn around her body familiar to its touch kissed it
and caressed the root poured the liquor of her lust over its impatient passion

it writhed it groaned as she had and it was content to be twisted
to freely be imprisoned in the imagined beauty of her heart

 my lover has made the norns drunk
wined them and dined them
now they sleep satisfied and dumb
on the settee bought by her in-laws.
named for towers
rising and lowering
no touch plays in the snow
she returns to the harbour
with shadowed hands to seize nothing

below the music lights drip
a vow tightens reason
on flat land she dries yesterday as magnets
pull tight on the saddle to point at that image

of manmade metal
 the shore is as distant as oil
on its surface a rider forces his wet hand
into a boat bobbing low with the tide as if to say

we cannot rest if sleep wakes
the faint outlines of our shadows
shallowly standing
flick switches on the shore

the refrain is heading for a quiet moment
to confirm that he listens
nearly night and lost candles encode his eyes
shadows or shadows push

and here he is staring out into a sky
pressed against by sacrifice and idols
hidden deserts shrug at the windows in your eyes
and repetition comes each night

between the slight changes
that are made to brush against stone
the memories of this narrative begin
sea within sight

shifts with her breathing towers
and roofs counted for the depth of their taste
such as vinegar spoiling our moment
stand and look at the night

I will definitely see fish fall beyond the bridges
crossing into headlights
as a barge takes to the river
hold straight horizon

faint faces order your hands into new heights
and a collection goes around
beneath flickering we pass an elephant
or hold on and let it pass

high speed and shadow lock up the shutters
as I woke and turned if only to reflect
on being against all rules of science
the taste of the wine we left

needs black lines or cotton flowers to fall
and laughter says that they were lights
going out to stop them seeing
the wall has a cat on it

speak so he turns towards rare nights
and shadow our fear of darkness
I could fracture through decision and research
wrapped like a battered fish

we dare not waste
the only sound made lights another place
and hovers there so singing at strangers
we listen and never react

without those women
telling our every pause to lift out the catch
relent like concrete
to admit waiting for the sun

I am pulled back to confirm their science
now that morning burns away our night
it is clear that the snow was on the hills
only long enough to push against its own outline

cats will want to tap at concrete
making no music
and looking past him to one horizon
they will see it shimmer and call it god.
article 3
on the beach

stop grinning
as we board
we delight
        and me anyone
        who doesn’t drink
success explained vibrant
everyone else
instruments
the exposure these natives
        buying relying
        speechless
        order
to give us a bird’s eye
                         view
of domestic appliances
any bliss can wait
not since the age of four
squares showing the local area
more than anywhere else there
        is installation.
soya soya        painting a fence

like the amazon now
houses on stilts
salt marshes
         the wash
         inside
the infamous ask for boasts
         keep waiting
broken seductions          other women say
         have you heard?
musically
         every effort is a reflection
         of being yours
which slips to this
serious lads
chiselled futures
the filled in quarry is all scotch pine and sliver birch
it’s the sea
         subtle and connected
         which is weary
         some luggage is labelled
         anyone expected.
14th November

:the parody of the labyrinth.
of that wall
internal cast out

there are pains felt between now
and this morning when the stiff
envelope appeared a trio of stamps
a folded letter it did not crumble
it was hacked at
rested alone unread

I spoke of another and let it come to life
within the maze no minotaur there

the parody is tight   pressing against resistance

electricity is there
always against the path's flow
it is not taken to be medical or of any concern
only a lost month bound and now unravelled.
morning activity
the waking of streets is the movement
of two bodies in opposition
a street atlas has fallen between them disorganised
and missing pages
the heavy destruction of you are here nearer

it was open with the air rushing in
and then quickly closed
fading plug replaced
I settle into it later
the alleyway is made unfamiliar
by the pulling of boxes

across the table strangers talk of
bearded plagues and coughs
geese flying west
of collecting pensions for living life
and malaria whale blubber
spilling onto sand
travel years gone or lost
coming to this sick sea

the waking of arms held
static pulled open
brittle pieces of toast collapsing
into mouths
hunger never needed protection
locked up

seventeen minutes after the displayed caller
everything came to this statue bearded
held still for the need of martyrs
and new idols
I closed the lid when the steam rose

that culled feather pleading
evidence of torture not unmade
sheets reach from the top to pull
rain always settles this
moving from feathers to windows to a scene ignored
unseen really

cavity stale open
auctioned by movement
betrayal is deleted
culled waking happens
when the evident is craved     lit up
           dim
reach
pulling
feathered
grids
her new body beneath
sheets
lit
open
caller
           plague
martyred
over
           pulled down
walls
windows
a green plaque
new grammar
brick beds
and I will when home you come cover.
senator
original of atoll

fiction
is to order over the phone
for your daughter
yearly a longer distance stretched
extracted and
unread she can listen to myths all the more vivid
for absence

it reflects the history and the present
on the roads of london
a man was hung
swill was dropped
a toilet ended up on his head.
the verdict put into action.

aubergine chilli is spooned into denim
they pick it up and in that light it is worth saving
the first ten minutes are written off
as mistakes
we settle
we forget difficulty
movement comes later
and it is always away.
exiled construction of kings and inflammation

listening to the repeating sound
a hammering comes through

work is being done on your statue
in the desert
where all your prizes have been collected

when the camera filters
to one woman backing away
each step takes her further from the sun’s glare
until she exits the frame

there is a soundtrack
it is the gunning of an engine
the scraping of metal on the road’s surface

the hammer is revealed to be an uprising
removing all signs of your glory
crumbling like mints which roll away as the engine grows
louder

all other sounds diminish
all other movement ceases
the crumbling mints roll
the once empty desert is resurrected

your midget bull
black and with soft horns
is ready to defend you
dancing they poke their lances
into the poor beast’s side
bursting his buboes

the exhaust coughs
onto the street
onto raw sand
unploughed land

somewhere behind the curtains
and blue gables
in the exiled suburbs
are acts unthinkable

when the images return
a truer self is revealed
jowly predictable a working lack of purpose
the suit is ill fitting and billows out
caught by a breeze no longer restricted.
article 1
I remember putting the
news on          and who is he?
maybe at the scene
detached
here actually
                it doesn’t get
       much there
so I went over
years
       something for
       listen to the question
       just to see.
article 9

any paris of the future
rests in its chest
we may feel
that a fierce brilliance
is devised
         I could recall
         jumps
         I put together
a pavement
         these two       I want
         visually
         or
         breathlessly
only puddings are bold
all the rest is scruffy.
article 13
lizard by name and anyway isn’t it nurture   this change
        suggestions are
        for makers       and
        starters of love affairs
        to paint
the colours are as sweet
                as sounds
but as dull as sights
on friday last
I was anything
why do you press
when there’s hardly anything to say
        unless
a warrior system replaces
the queues for cod and rocket
I’m afraid this episode
is blinding static and
         transports
                                 problems.
solo pun

magden ltd.
magdalene subdued her elbows scraping
a trinity of arrows leading east
not nearly as far as www.warmsure.com
that misty isle once called king of the road

apt at seeing white buildings between twigs
divine dropping to a trickle
slows to stop ylkeev brother of misprinted yggdrissel
over there the too bright land
some out of heaven grayson coaches
with a telephone number engraved
white buildings free of twigs

the pen hard to control
I’m innocent
as winding to one side
with potatoes and to another vile bodies
simply darling
white house strung with telephone wires
merseypride in sherborne square
something arose in the offices of coote

the rigging rung coote looking out
where once was nursing now is a wall
a marketplace
he dreaming of wallsend of a smart little runner
to take him there like that kenyan lad
a red woman gets out of a well dressed car
white buildings with bold chimneys

xmas trees of different sizes
some broken or dying
stain the building yellow lost library
a pissed on wall
I did this in the drive of the boundary hospice
up the wall and down my leg
up old hadrian and down old hannibal
the salted earth of carthage made moist
for elephants to drink

edging out a neon fleur-de-lis
in the back some fantasy of socks and legs
reaches lunts heath road
spreading fallen leaves
with flashing lights the ice is soothed
a woman between equidistant trees
poplars   gas clearing system spreading

over hedges a white building’s tip is exposed
we all near time and time nears us
more so this old girl almost felled
fumes of finsbury park
looking out to this each day a penny
a button drops.

two bikers sip soup and in the everglades
an unrolling of passion is about to take place
on top of their bed sheet secrets
white buildings painted in buried jug fashion
cover them hello
through the telephone wire
hello is that swansea.
rebels and martyrs
rebels and martyrs
wear open shirts

I’d just left
crossed over
passed away
a loan company            called
                 irregular
she can be cynical               goes straight
into the café
where the city seemed            weighed down by cranes
all scaffolds are art
and this is the culture           look at it seep
into our open mouths
so thirsty
how long have we been waiting for this
it’s so beautifully sour.
my new left reviewed
belts of steel surround the earth
longitude carries the ice from
young mothers of greenland
to the child mothers of
the americas

at north and south poles
there are opponents
outlandish theories
and body snatches

up in his study he directs the flow
his guide has passed
our feet
still heavy
tread on rabbit flu
ignored by the medical profession
until there’s only
a picture of his broad body
framed
saying you’ll find both
and even on various occasions
we board up abandoned
train stations
and frighten women

her body is the english seaside
and we spend our time there
waiting for glass to melt.
competition (response to aragon)
is he queuing
with low leg-ends
married commys in-ground lords
men tend to queue in all universes
queue
so we can’t miss any more

people commence
historians are wrong
they roll on ancient romances
chanting no vote

now there are commys amongst the trees
with lapels
colouring pain
showing all and none of the battle
it lessens north
where there are no dollars

all bastards eat commys
join and say no queuing
        in long histories
        they’ll make amends

bruised infants of the corridor
         tumble
these souls
         tumble
it’s a surly ill-fated joy
         and the roses dance

achievers sing commy tunes
ring the room
all regret
        (the music)

the little valley
with truth and lillys
vilest violets
         turns the view
         to violent
         dancing
         gently

the line has changed
and lost before
int’l marketing and distrib. by one
lowing messnant on independent
off ass get by sholto byrnes
the alert middle-aged man sat up straight

                              and even courted his eventual
                              exhibition of pictures about which I
                              who patiently fastens reinforcements

probably enon eversent
able to offer to anturyatt number of key
hugo and ich will be by perhaps

                              it has got more power it’s almost like a
                              north american and australasians
                              we will soon be ordering your desk

weeks and from par-is
views on london the more of the sales – great!

                              the writing I think is different if
                              the horror of mutilation took hold of
                              place like this to put all the cops govern

the agent reinlive
doing veryness of simply
?
recorded

                              you’ll be late what are you doing after
                              through the light of the street-lamp far away

equally pertenet
informativeinsible

                              inscribed collusive reader who under
                              laughing laughing it was a funnier.
article 5
in lines black
the arts are described
as having                 an
         erstwhile squint
he almost represents the real
they
         mention you
philosophy        tries to happen
         in parks
                 in pubs
but enough
but just
                 the disposable
suburbs and decapitated efforts
are
life work childhood rolling
come back
         it’s probably as good
         here as a coronary
the bangs will only cease.
article 10 (for the director actor and writer)
is it time
is it confirmed
with anti-semitism
or heedless generals
         I hold my headless son
blood
painted
on the staring wheel of his bed
in any event
these men become friends
it was cut to the chase
come forward
         there’s a little boy
         suddenly out of nowhere
         the snake touches
         his faint outline
they are remembered as a sharp people
of some
now submerged plain
and none of the envelopes
lower the last coffin into the house.
article 14
after 20,000 numbers his boyfriend mops his brow
grains are measured
        air is inhaled
        the rest blocked out
anywhere a moment is thought to be near
a novel is commissioned
        on jesus’ nephew
        on a president’s buttock
        on what we did then
        on gutting a pig
the vulture pecks
        and through him
        comes contentment
        with him
        comes some kind of raptor to nibble on our walls
if only we could civilise all this untouchable information
        enter into it or him.
article 17
before he might die
his father saw him twice
different eyes
and dress
pineapple rings dry out
beans turn from orange to grey
a beeping
the screwdriver is in the fresh air
and his wandering walk threatens something
out there
I wouldn’t        have stopped
        a shorthand for let downs
        his role is military
        not nature
the crocodile eats bread and answers to bernie.
ostrich tree
plumage of threatening feathers
branches as if frozen by
a risen hand eyeless eden’s guardian

they were lions with similar wings
men holding scimitars of course
the plants needed light to flourish

their roar chased clouds now they wilt
flowers as guilty gifts and sudden brilliance
heat through glass a fractured image
thermopylae
bottle necked squeezed tight into a suit
if by holding this position
broken hedgerow encroaching
speckled tarmac

all the armies of the east
would fall back pulped into sand
for preservation a marmalade of nations
with each cut of that once ripe fruit
                        individual structure

that faint and tuneless
beat called solitude
an anti-prison lessens
all along the hedge there are wider gaps
                        broken by hands and blades
                        yet some are planted to give way.
canis rufus
rarest wolf bred to saturation prowling cafeterias marking corridors
claiming cubicles teeth biting into memos demanding with desperate eyes
hungry for raw redness for the pack to tear and rip to scavenge until the quarry relents

in each office replicated in random urban centres
there are wolves such as this sniffing out change
howling for proformas legislation and that fresh kill named ‘fraud’

always their starchy paws prepare the carcasses
to be picked at ensuring the scattered pack is satisfied
at night we hear howls amongst the sirens and constant rain.
abraham (holding his son)
what a knife what hard
unyielding butter
operatic bread broken useless

leaving the house with a mouth
full of dry crumbs
the day fails already

it is a stop-motion vision
epileptic gaius before he was julius
uncontrolled each shutter drop

however instantaneous brings back the knife
buttering the sun
too sharp the blade or fragile the gas

out drips a stream
both molten and refreshing
lozenge heart widening yet

(distance’s growing lies of solidity).
of eliot’s woe of alexander’s toe
in each window sureness of scene
a lasting and likeable life
though squalid yes
                or better still
boastful full of well-watered seeds

a gnostic’s notebook open to;
I have been forced to seek asylum

an unfamiliar parchment
skin held up to the light
used as a shade from luminosity’s
               expansion drip and drop
bleach cleaned sink

only in free newspapers for a city
for its walls to fall is there closeness to great men

and greater women
alumni of the finest schools
where an actor as window cleaner
               praises the magnitude of his task
his tough tough job

what it is you see he says is little
when held against the less.
a fragment
nothing was said or needed to be said
they entered a room quite like a cave
uncarved unconstructed
they descended removed the boulder
a cockerel darted from its corner
untied its peasant owner came after
calling out that vulgar name owning

moths wings battering the calm
converged on the contrast
between shadows strings
not to be played but to orchestrate tension
a home for brittle legs scurrying out

pressing on mingling amongst their toes
lightness stroking a closeness to movement
bringing them forward to a bed
upon which she slept unaware
of the bulging ceiling
burst pipes and conspiratorial laughter
 yellowed newspapers poking through plaster

dated from years before
young turks take power
at their knees the towers collapsed
our friends and our enemies
in hiding and in genuflection

and yet something was still unwritten
passengers rustled inkless pages on workday
journeys elsewhere turn after turn omnibus motion
further still the ceiling bulged will she sleep he asked
and they laughing revealed
her eyes were open saying brother she wake’
to the cockerel’s strangled crow.
in civility
this new awareness of digested passion
experience torn up for the confidential waste
just like the boche did to our rouen jelly

better to recycle than see our streets
filled with language tickling the ivories
even as the piano is loaded and down the drive

contact and results benefit of service
until a mouth opens and a mind is raked
clear of sodden leaves rained upon

they are caught in wheels
slowly turning towards a new front
neither dynamic nor reliable.
pronoun in the night
with a flowing movement
an old habit was unzipped
                 the restoration of a link
                 psalms suddenly sung
like elgar hidden behind
the rhythm of a grasp
                 no trilogy of reefs
                 or beatitudes exposed
for the paint’s first coat
over the naked waiting wall.
a truth of herons
the heron ungainly jerking against air
as storks flood east anglia’s well drained waters

harsher beaks fragile and with reach
snap at the illusive bird’s flight

the heron is not hampered
until a hawk builds the scene

is this the hook the greying sky
a nail to hang this silent narrative upon

harrying worrying vessels of instinct
and soon they are gone the hunter and its unreachable game

gulls always the cue for rolling titles
their wings tipped by the sky’s drained greyness

cover the window smother nature’s faint showpiece
in turning away the landscape of the day is laid out

unwashed plates pressed trousers drying cereal
foil wrapped sandwiches a base beginning.
tanzania cesar bosch and burgundy
is befalling once again
again as it befell my home

to this end syntactical
architects craft newly

all fragments of the familiar
too much in the mouth

babel shattered collapsed roof
then by bells ringing

I knew but could not tell
open I could not answer.
dead man rides train all night…
between the docks and well-known mock-swiss hotel
I drank all the rum and slept for the rest of the journey

(anchor loose the ship gave in to its sails)

it was in that sugar-beat coma thought deadly
that trauma fresh and familiar burst succulent for headlines

(anchor loose she sank into her separate sleep)

it was not distant booming false that woke me
a rain more real began and as it touched my face I saw

(anchor loose the ship touched virgin oceans)

night no dripping sun in the weak moon’s glow I knew
all anchors had been let loose and alone I could only await silence

(anchor loose she without silence slept).
nacht und nebel
extinguished at such a distance
into the mist or was it a clear day
haze reflecting from dry earth
to lie upon a field to be forced to lie
to say the warmth is enough
and ignore the terrible chill blast

at times such a distance from us
and of that fog and of the night.
dogstar delayed
there is the beating of oars or open lotus flowers
in this moment blossoms rest upon untouched soil

as feet would never walk too scarred and hands too numb
the scent of oil and perfume is mingled

with tar and smoke nothing is known
by those passing travellers in paprika alcoves

protected from that advancing horde bathing
lost seeds swiftly caught by greedy winds

torn and wrecked the sea is steady now
and the boats are all at harbour.
goddesses
there are laws against secular persecution
god can be denied justly and unfairly

at this point removed where the false breeze
of justice has vanished dispersed
and as a hovering hawk the sun
one of many stars hangs lower creeps closer
as a betrayed woman kissed chosen and discarded

it sags and a tear can be traced down her cheek
fury and lost will mistaken for collapse.
in sandals and with swords
scarra brae near muckle flugga
donkey such beautiful jaws
wailing donkey pulling tourists higher
the watching village clinging to hills
an ideal bay barren of herrings and mackerel

nazis of the costa del sol
blood vikings cast adrift I found greenland
lied to you all we drink and mope

carry infants to the shore wash and sacrifice them
the phalanx of my brother’s groping with one hand down
half as vulgar as lawrence left for healthier eyes

it was a nebraskan snow letters crossing continents
dismissive of a request for water
I love you because of this in bed he tells
her of all the engines he would like to know
has known she rests easier

a pale and faint figure the brittle stance
of extraordinary horses ghoulish history vixen
ax and that unutterable river       below the rhine

we set a guard against winter packed tightly
unfound canada had let go blizzard balance tilting
a desert approaches then begins a great race all fanfare and pomp

all the swooping jets crushing crowds
and yet it melts pompeii below the ash
arms creak even as with ecstasy there are moans
of nissan peugeot fiat
bringing her contentment to his conclusion.
i

ides glimpses of dali’s eye
drawn across producing a bird
raw and flightless.
ii

fluidity for nothing
hints of shallow pools shackled to ice
they listened adrift.
iii

recognition tempered return
a frankish king called charles after all
that past fantasy fades.
iv

it would be elm with a slight crack
saxon shield feeble for woden
splintered in the hacking wall.
v

persevere that boil needs attention
a spear no more the metal river
and gallantry is its ointment.
vi

cut for soya fossil coiling
it is the canopy we cannot penetrate
wounded europe’s dark forest still.
vii

revelling in being revealed
where plush sheets drape around young necks
as moths dancing and mouths caressing.
viii

and with each step he stumbles back
this darker room lit by showering light
a breeze pushed up by crashing trees.
ix

as john the baptist why shouldn’t I be herod
such a cut to seal
and the bed is cold crack’d motif.
x

an eye’s first seeing delta orb
water bright chaining an automaton
a legend reads I was pope I was a daughter.
xi

keenest blade to cut the bull’s eye
they were twins never fighting
not for matador’s sword or rag

in one final moment the cheering urged them
whitest leather bloodied
and the final film was very fine.
xii

forward! lack of experience
what brews is sipped I had so many
until the weeping began man for man for none

at all and tilting atlas straining
vesuvius blinking a saxophone played
through the walls he never catches that tune

it only emphasises the closed window
and neat sheets outside he points
to the forest isn’t it always as such

in some tower vine wrapped ancient
there is some prize giving passage
reborn and ending to an eternal return.
xiii

haystacks baled an ill-disguised disgust
at how the romans walked
how they built romance

colours such as the sky yellowing lost books
or the grass paling towards a displaced time
seasickness fades with each leaving of the shore.
xiv

in highlands in german palaces
their wives are lined up
not beneath this sun uncrack’d

undamaged coughing symptomatic
of a personal distaste building greater infections
it’s bronchitis surely not tuberculosis

as I ate the langoustines I could feel waves of heat
a light bulb in the late evening
brighter as a more complete darkness falls.
xv

expecting the same implosion
an exhausted figure a stranger
clutching a briefcase phones held in shock

connected static in less than a century
going back to the kingdom of Italy
burgundy as a nation not a tipple

prussia venezia and danzig reduced to a pile
how would you describe the scene
how could I have ever slept.
the prospect of news
midday jump ship we are awash
with birthday celebrations
on this day such a number were born

cut through air a magician’s pistol
bullet fired appeared as light and lines intersecting
causing illusion

freedom declining below the horizon
and it seems some liquid falls from the sun
in well worked hands all goods are seized.
reaction to grief
it is all delayed trains leave her Bay
fractions percentages those great brands
flashing past advertising themselves

like the tunnel we sped through
sudden yet postponed derelict
the suspicion is that he is a pornographer of grief

fall out asked for apologies rusted chains
released so their strands are revealed
their resonance with a leap he is submerged

crying into the hot-tub into the hot-tub into the hot-tub.
waves of subdued devastation
my journey given motion never reaching
the pebble pressed road winding beside the forgotten stream

blind bend
blind moment

we have rules they were written down by barons and earslings
one is do not push the sea upon our estuary we will subdue

open water
opened eyes

this barrier its true name forgotten between the wild north
and beyond all animal skins and beer the modern too far from here

blind bend
blind moment

the steady current now seen is clogged we have bricks
they are arranged in sequences spiralling outwards until towns breathe

open water
opened eyes

no postcode is left untouched cranes peck at the unfamiliar skyline
we have a urinal let me tell you now I cannot shit my masculinity

blind bend
blind moment

is it possible to see the illness dripping into the river
reasons and florid descriptions for the murk are written

open water
opened eyes

in only a matter of pages the problem is dissected
and clarity is agreed upon the river should be covered and ended

blind bend
blind moment.
our starting point
mimicry of the heard
unveiling the sculpture
he sits and smokes
is painted as such
the pastoral field
of the fallen
fence posts scattered
frightened flocks

ruddy fox
at the ramblers’ feet
holding indignity
what hand can lay upon itself
drained and returned to nature
the eyes of that fox
the eyes of a future light pollution
a darkling view not yet brightened.
for knights and progress

it continues
not manifest
driving the old cart
head in the old trough
guzzling and gobbling
crawling across the island
held with uncertainty

told and retold
joining queues we listen
to the covered women talk
and our island expands
a new moon is cut
slender and unregulated
a radioactive isotope

I swallowed the salt
despite my training
it rested in my stomach
a secret
hallowed
until it passed

and for the people
and for the castles
he had not a bed to rest upon
he spoke of rights
and purged wrongs
now his words
are his prison.
in seeing the purist
below calm seas sails unfurled released
and the named breeze does catch them tempts us
allowing neptune for so long lazy to watch

in older days we piled up corpses art needed no response
any pope found beyond byzantium was a nomad minimal
and the surreal feeds upon it births an imagery of myth

I kiss the minotaur use his sickness
now faster the moment approaches when god fades
when the created is no longer legend surpassed by abstracts

correspondence pages of proposals a stifling seriousness
are all of our goals our needs    what is resolved in the night
is a longing to make ourselves as lost popes wandering arabia

or the ashes of glass how far can travel take us away
packaged returning with tales of crowded trains our longed for release
for now we have the bliss of our gardens of foreign flowers.
regulated action
scurrying between the restaurant and golden lion
avoiding a poppy lapelled veteran with a heavy cough

the west-drawn sun means nothing to it or me mutated movement
mathematics is the parched root calculated

forgetting and continuing I walk on
past his faded medals its mud caked fur the bistro diners

beneath that cyclical presence of reflected and embraced light
I peer over the bridge into the sound of a passed train

just to walk now thunder ruins the silence
now the sewer shadow moves nearer my stillness tempts

what other word fits here but scurry
to listen to the booms the fading last train and then later to sleep

it was in the late afternoon I began to walk
soon enough the day’s end will be followed by kindled morning

the heavy cough sputtered onto the last bus
and the scurrying feet found their home

leaning over the bridge near the restaurant
and golden lion I thought of the old women

sitting in the café earlier warming their cockles
their chatter my silence giving the sipped tea its chorus.
assessed progress
the next step
caravaggio cut up
velasquez in the piano stool
intersects the futurist’s shape

his severed head exists beyond brushstrokes
standing back it takes a different form
lust in the fishmonger’s window
reduced amongst the mackerel

orbs suspended
there is another planet
this is its sunlight
showing layers of dust over empty houses

education is financed
by a silk lined weather beaten pocket
the pages fold
yet it is the pen we watch.
prologue to a report
behind broken walls and empty docks is a damaged land
if there were gardens they would be all that remained instead of skeletal cranes
far away mountainous peaks fade in and out of reality over the heat dirty city
yet every day I get off the bus and one hill seems to have shifted
a moveable peak resisting the urge to stay and look down upon that same irish sea
the ecstasy every man craves until impotent will stills them or they are told change is coming
in contrast to this the yearly festival celebrates touch and worships taste
rotten fruit fills streets and empty beer glasses are blown about now the music has stopped
between the two cathedrals looking down to the river the distant outline of the hill has settled
the city that has changed and allowed itself to be altered by stroking notes and trickling coins
only a suggestion of the solid image we once had of its dwindled georgian splendour.
now and after
futurists return to the coliseum where all this cultural scaffolding topples
in between the aftermath is energy       glimmering
reaching into the air metal veins scraping white brick

terracotta roofs are removed by men with plans manuscripts and good news
women with voice pass these shadows all of them squat
high towers totter over the cliffs and foaming squall unsteady in the wind

we are beyond the waves and furious awareness of the now
eyes focus at last it can never be a prologue
leaning ever over   spires and tiled turrets tumble

opening a rust-closed gate  in came the infantry
vibrating ornate and overworked arms saluting without irony
they catch images lovely art mementos of history

as the duke would have it so the new kings have made it
everywhere with yawns awnings awake are lifted
metal teeth shining and if they were shut they would bite

it is only sweat in the cup not wine not some liquor of paradise
pulp the juice trickles out is gulped and drained
a reviving tonic not some liquor of life a wetting of lips

in the echoing cavern their laughter fades and the crowd that gathered departs
moments concertina toward her lulling rest she disappears into sleep as the ceiling collapses
the newspaper in his hand is his final confirmation of what was real what was dreamt.
bitten by the bug
              for otto III and the fallen world.

it was whilst visiting romuald that sickly green saint
of ravenna’s dank swamps that otto king of the franks was bitten by the bug
or maybe it happened long before was ordained to be passed down with his name
otto a trinity of kings fathers sons and ghosts
waiting for some bastard antichrist to show themselves
in penance in fear in dreams of glory

and sweating otto went south to jerusalem
imagining his crown laid down upon the blood anointed grass
of golgotha’s silent summit vomited and shat his apocalyptic vision away
just when it was all so vivid slipped into a too soon sleep
took his sweat drenched dream with him
and passed into the ghost-hold of his fathers’ embraces

there he was he sat right there amongst us he shared our greatest chore
romuald’s disciples slurred from their hole of christian defiance
the last emperor of rome bitten by the same bug as we
succumbing to the same end we none of us can flee
crawling in naked and his teeth all gone his greenness caked in clay and stinking
his true disciples the flies swarming romuald garbled and a fresh disciple heard him clearly

he says that a crown has already been passed on laid upon a head
burgeoning with horns that only this constant abstinence
from our lost lives from our forgotten joys from the pleasure of clean flesh
from that water that once cleansed us our exile in the hell of this swamp
can halt the coming end times can give passage to heaven
from this middle earth for we true few

and as poor long-rotten romuald that gibbering frog man
convulsed and moaned to be released
the fresh disciple threw himself down spat and cried
called his brothers closer so every hand touched romuald’s pea-green skin
to let the good mud soak in and the brittle ribs of those disciples quivered
and ravenna’s swamps resounded with prayer and the buzzing of ignorant bugs.
bellerophon and the chimera

the heat was too much as if eight furnaces belched it
not one odd bodied beast lion mane singed
any doctor would snip that nanny off its back
say the flailing snake was better left to flail
odorous fire choking on pewter little armies of tin soldiers batteries
cascading bullets a mad man’s shelter lay there still mythic statue
some carved thing stuck on a beach with affects of rust
cold and mouth gaping lead pipe protruding
pegasus circling as it coughed and cried for the mother
of all monsters swan wings and his damocles sword
hanging then rain then night
a night made for scurrying a muttered voice
saying very good now go on home
see if one less thing of smoke and fire lightens the world
see if all that happened is forgotten
see if sleep comes any easier.
o’connor’s slip

he was running along a pipe
like we all did after school and fell
so that a jagged spike jutting up
from the revealed sewer’s murk
stabbed into his groin
he was fine though
it missed his balls and the next day
he brought his torn trousers in
holding them up
for all us lads to wince at.
hare in winter

as I looked out over cheshire
I saw a hare run and pause in the snow
some echo of what the legionaries saw
the madness of the painted men they glimpsed
in mist in the mysteries of the forest
reflected in the jerking legs of that hare
moments earlier I had watched
from the slowing train’s window
as it reached shotton station
a young shetland pony tethered by rope
to a wall in a brick and gravel yard
turning mud with his bored hooves
and earlier still as I ran for the noon train
I saw a grey mare do the same
in a field as the snow began to settle
clearing away the white chill dust
to find fast freezing grass
hidden quickly by the sudden fall
now across from where I sit
as the train moves off for wales
and the ice coated dee estuary
a large girl is standing searching for a seat
her stretched leopard skin skirt’s hem
brushing the thick dyed leather of her boots
the rattling laughter of teenage girls
comes down the aisle and a phone rings
is not answered as the snow turns to sleet
changing the temporal whitened world
to its grey reality of concrete factories
and the comings and goings of lorries.
on the floods in cockermouth

god getting rid of his toilet bowl
flushing rain falls on cockermouth
and all of cumbria
cracks the bridges births new lakes
and it gapes that heavenly mouth
like those lads spitting
phlegm on to phlegm

now it falls on their dogs
and they lap it up.
opposite the stables

less of a wall
but shattered brick
and glass remain
jutting and proclaiming
I love here
you can see it as you drink
and with tapping pen
think those words aren’t enough
and don’t even rhyme.
I love here
her and all her winding weeds
tugging at brick
hugs and holds the corrugated sheets
of cold metal
serenaded by
the scratch of pen
the clink of glasses
so that every gulp
becomes a broken line.
promenade

the suddenly still crane
hanging above another wall
beside the river tide out
mud flat a container dangling
as if it can’t think what to say
a radio perched there by the promenade
the workers waiting too caught in static
so that only day and away are heard clearly.
drawing of a cat with man

here this wounded wall
wallpaper clinging
the years in layers coming away
until he stands holding a cat
in near faded ink
vibrant 70’s flowers flanking him
he is dated 1936
flowing yellowed signature and this
when I went you were left here
my foreign raindrop were your silent tears
then her name the same
yellowed by time hidden again
until some other hand wounds this wall.
a zone poem

at bending corners and dividing ends
from great hollows idylls jokers
kicked limply moreover now our priests question reason
substitute thought under the under-sheet eyes
of voyeuristic watchers x-raying yesterday’s zones.
from an unexpected letter

our separation is a deep truth our adolescence
gone and I am a selfish objectivist
like brutus I twist the knife
and all our cherished things pass
are told and become a tired tale
a sort of fascism advocated
not endearing to those close
as easy to take as these important steps
when we tag along pulled at by generosity
this way and that      emphatic words
ringing we are heartened by none of them
and only solitude helps the stage is lit
and we leap upon it disbanded so alone.
poem for

you are all grubby indecency
all I last did it just before christmas
in a travelodge near stockport
newly married newly dyed
near crimson hair promises of stockings
as the morning shifts towards afternoon
your promises like the light
cast against the tv screen against
homes under the hammer deal
or no deal location location location location
lengthen and though I can’t make out
that five bed semi in clapham through the light’s
glare I know that you want me to be your daddy
or a back-on-the scene uncle to catch you touching
yourself in the bathroom then like tuesday
the power goes off and car alarms beep
with an ever-increasing ear-aching volume.
review
the reviewer and the reviewed share a surname
and have similar home county first names
one a nickname the other archaically biblical
and set against the others there reviewed
in the reviewer’s online blog this young blood
this name brother reviewed is the standout
the exception the what the world needs right now
and then at the bottom of the article someone
sharing the reviewer’s nickname has typed wildly
in the comments box that this sort of nepotism
this sickening back patting cock rubbing
will be the death of art trails off with poorly spelt
expletives and a message to the reviewed
not to forget dad’s birthday that mum is ordering chinese
both our sisters will be there bring beers.
hachiko

where he found you you lay down
where he left you you waited
hachiko waiting for a love that would never return
at shibuya station with the trains sighing to a stop
with the memory of a hand softly
laid upon your white fur your soft ears
and a voice saying stay hachiko
I will be back by evening and evening
fades and morning ends and the day passes
just the same as you wait hachiko
at shabiyu station where he found you
and where you lay down alone to sleep.
cats at play
there’s nothing can be done about that table its leg will have to go
deco are the curtains she chose and leaf carpeted as late as autumn
you can get a new one maybe never hold a cup let alone sandwiches
always moist tomato’s juice leaking into bread take the tomatoes off
their red in the butter and sweetness there too good as ketchup I’d say
four barms later madeira battenburg fancies the dishes went undone
didn’t get put away downstairs is another place give the banister
just one knock that’ll go other than here this too hot bedroom
elsewhere space our window open but the door shut cats at play
balled bit of foil rolls away him too proud never gets involved
probably leap right through if he had a chance give him it
sure to take four barms just scotch eggs left then I’m half tempted
to go to the kitchen scrub knives and forks too much movement
this trying to sleep here isn’t movement as far as you can get
that pyrex dish really clean no charred bits I hadn’t noticed the rain
the washing limp on the line soaked she’ll love that then looking up
for once cloudless and starry the perseid meteor shower
drenching everywhere they’ve left theirs out too in that constellation
our curtains drawn no breeze to lift as still as that and silent too
falling spears of light scraping at the unwashed night.
hektor tamer of horses

such was the burial and dogs and beast could not feast
they cremated him a line of irish guards when one swung
to salute his rifle hit a light I’ll only die when the lights go out
how strange he’d horses as child but only because no one else
would have them wild beasts mad as rabid dogs kicked
flung riders but he could lay a hand and calm them
picked a fight on a platform a girl covered in blood a man pushing her
everyone else reading their magazines but he couldn’t tame that
hardly recognised him his face so bruised his piss never clear
after that and his hands shook that was the worst for him
when he tried to lay them on a wild horse they would bolt kick
outside the crematorium a police horse awaited its rider
someone vandalising burial plots when the light smashed
it kicked couldn’t be controlled almost knocked the vicar’s head off
then something stilled it suddenly and the old guards said
he’d never sleep without a light and the rain clearing sun coming through
lit golden mane meant he could now and such was the wake we had then.
or his distance from the sun

waiting beneath an umbrella expecting a downpour from another room
where an argument persists this is fire being stoked they tear up the guardian
and an old table nails and all it had wood rot the editorials catch first
that sizzle is the nhs whimpering if he broke his leg he’d be straight to bupa
if she took time to look at that mole she’d be down harley street lamps turning on the summer
days are shortening now days are mainly intervals of light between rain
and my heavy jacket hangs over the banister they call each other bastard and bitch through
that is the sound of a thief rolling our recycling bin away I can crush cans
toss them in the bin when the milk is finished I’ll just put my foot on the pedal up goes the lid
in goes plastic every unread saturday newspaper and sweat beads and still they rage so it
seems their heat will never die like the neglected plant
on the window sill beneath his umbrella he looks at his watch counting the time until his
interview guessing how long it will last or his distance from the sun.
the night of his vision there

far side of the bedroom in the late afternoon with the lamp lit
because the evenings are drawing in the dresser is covered with clothes
the mirror reflecting the wardrobe’s open door and a teacup on its side
it seems a sleeping drunk unbothered by their collapse snoring with ale breath
and below the fire is lit toppled coal blackens the hearth later in mid sleep
mid night and suddenly waking the door still open no light from the landing
tooth white cup where it was dropped half up the bed half standing within sheets is a middle
aged woman holding a broom too faint sweeping towards pillows
and the woken witness watches his vision then slips back to sleep beside his wife
but stumbling into morning there is still the night his vision there
in the garden a bloated frog reddening and dead floats on a wooden slat
on the algae ridden duck pond will they take it? his wife had asked
meaning the over-filled recycling bin but turning she had gone and inside
she was whistling somewhere fresh coffee and a biscuit on the pastoral plate
she came in from the hall holding a broom her face fresh I heard a noise
she tells him and still he says nothing of the night of his vision there.
other things a flood make

digging in berry street a lost toilet uncovered
and the lonely man eternally pissing below street lamps
and noodle bars discarded cigarette ends by his feet
piss wet still leaning over the urinal still groggy
from afternoon drinks at the grapes and ye cracke
effluence bubbling out up onto the broken street
workmen scratch heads and hold their noses at the stench
call it a day I peered once down into an abandoned cellar
half flooded table chairs bottle of wine a wax fixed candle
and stairs going up no one sat at the table no one drank
in the candle light here buses turn away from the exposed road
up an alley a man drains his day against a wall it could just be that
all the late night pissers the long day drinkers their waters
bubbling over hollow sewers below not built to last
not meant to catch what is flushed from reshaped quarters
and all the shining toilets with polished mosaic floors
too weak to keep hold of the city’s liquid traffic.
of that rabbit’s dying for days

car’s wheel struck it didn’t slow hobbled
this rabbit towards the grounds keeper in blue overalls
bent down to pick it up and taking it in his arms
for half a moment I thought he’d cradle it his hands
oil stained passing his roll up to his mate he pulled
the rabbit’s neck it gave a squeak the brown it was
flecked with the white of a winter we hadn’t had
for the main a young brown its colour flew through the air
flung into a bush then he took his roll up back
when I got there I wanted to look in the bush to do what?
pick it up be with it I heard the grind of the bus’ engine
coming to a halt at my stop it’s dead I told myself
waving towards the driver who smoking looked my way
I jogged for the bus passed over a crumpled torn ticket
then could not shake the sound of that rabbit’s dying for days.
apples on or near mossley hill

drawn by apples to the convent’s orchard
all up the hill broken crushed to pulp
a young couple kissing on the church steps
her wrapped beneath her lover’s leather coat
thieves we crept into the convent garden
drunk stirred nothing the convent cat
sleeping at the kitchen door slept on
we pulled unripe apples from the brimming trees
sharp to taste rancid some of them we bit on
we bit in to hard rocks sickly wet pulp
after each bite our laughter grew we took our sin
to the cricket pavilion washed it and those apples
down with lager found a ripe one blushed red
to the rest’s jealous green shared it put the cans down
ate it to its core we swallowed a pip each some pill
wandered down the apple strewn hill to an all night garage.
howlers gibbering on

so utter may it be so ill for so long like the longest lines of poetry
I ever read they go on like dripping taps at 11.30 am
dulled out day through voile the bin wagon scrapes cars
double parked all the way up the street no one anthologises that
or how my knees aches it’s like water is filling them up
they were never much good for running I sat and wrote I letter
with fluctuating fonts in a forgotten cafe it was scented on its return
here the train is nearing its light comes at us the hand painted cover
the book club saw it first devoid of a dustsheet below this city
in the metro land walls like grand toilets tiled and shimmering
water closet maps we were heading to charing cross then on
through kentish fields a singing drunk jostled us kicked a can
into oncoming lights and fell on his face the kids along the platform
howler monkeys couldn’t stop laughing at it all it is bower road
this reminds me of the fallen concrete wall there its metal support left
when I fell just missing what was stabbing out cracked a slab in two
left me with a scar down my back and those howlers gibbering on.
clodius and clodia

I knew clodius once and his sister his forum was our field
a triangle between our town’s three schools mine on its own capitol hill
wavering from up there we watched his random beatings
seeing nothing calculated about his fury his only rise led
to a consulship of fear and he wore his shirt open at the collar
in cesar’s style always near him watching would be her his clodia
her eyes were neither dark nor glittered dully they stared at her brother’s fists
falling I was alone one day and cut across the field it was her I saw first
no sprawled out entrails could foresee my fate she wore her school blouse
loosely open in her brother’s style her hair was dirty closer to the mudwet grass
than any good goddess and they had set a fire behind a low rise
when thronged by his mob he came for me thrown away school books
torn away fence posts fed the fire dark smoke rose for those who watched
to mark out clodius’ burning of another senate and just before they fell upon me
she laid a hand on his shoulder too gently I was trapped then the vast field
the distant school gates the wild flowers replaced by his alleyways of malice
and all around was his his fire his mob his need to beat his voice calling me
by my brother’s name and his sister watching saying nothing unresponsive
to the falling fists and my mudwrecked shirt forced open in cesar’s style.
and before the women unfold themselves a dog barks a tramp cries

below the city always this mingling of bodies
the women in stages of undress unlacing underwear
the men watching and above barking the mongrel dog
runs back and forth just misses a bus the tramp sits
in the doorway of a solicitor’s our eyes met is all
him slurring dribbling set the dog after me if I hadn’t been so drunk
I’d have gone below with the rest let my eyes fall on the naked
and the dead drunk men lolling and leering a bottle of french lager
in each of their hands but I turned the poor dog going
back and forth then the tramp coming at me spitting now
him he says pointing at me give him to me like we were
in a broken shield wall raging with bloodlust all about me
a scattering of people stagger by and then this confrontation
restrain your animal restrain your animal is my slurred demand
and the dog comes to heel with the tramp’s tears his cider bottle
tipping he slobbers on a stranger’s shoulder dog yowling at his side
I go below and before the women unfold themselves I take myself
to the bar and buy a french lager up above the dog is barking
and the tramp drowned out by seedy music cries suckles on his cider.
forget the saturday papers we’ll drizzle honey instead

and instead I went to the garage spitting rain
turned to a downpour behind corrugated fence a child’s
rucksack and the burnt ground black ash there and smell of gas
from the railway if it blew up we’d all go with it
and there ahead of me is a police horse shitting in the road
above it coming low to land a plane these two things
I make out easyjet the grey horse the tilted wings of the plane
combine and pegasus is soaring above the chimera pierced
by a bee’s sting there are less of them this year and their honey
changes from light amber to deep deep fudge like gold
scoop it wax and all onto bread those brambles that hedgerow
none of it would be there if it weren’t for my bees says the beekeeper
smoke scared bees gorging their little wings lifting them to safety
the whole land is burning not just the caged space beside the garage
when I go back the horse has flown recovered from that sting
the heaviness of the newspapers rolled up hidden as best I can
tucked beneath my arm heavier the rain now clouds too full
not a bee or plane or pegasus in the sky if I went to the road’s end
looked where? south? I could see the chimera’s breath black breath
black air like the black ground and to be honest I’ll never read
the review sections I’ll just skim the letters like sir I passed
a piece of waste ground where a child’s rucksack had toppled onto its side
or sir I can feel the newspapers soggy unreadable just the lifestyle
magazine’s glossy resilience left and all those recipes for broad beans
pea shoots mutton and all the honey we could drizzle on them.
and all the poets came to dance

he was near mechanical windows the regular expression of air
spent and exhaled and where the counties split there
is a ridge of land reflecting from the near tower blocks
is evening and the fields empty of hares this late in the year
into the town’s edge count the bricks until the bricks
are windows count the coffee he drank while he waited
then the poets came in their books neatly stacked their names
tattooed to the page the slow release of air reminded him
of something else the one who writes of wild children
another of loss and the city names streets such as a boulevard
in louisiana not a simple flat saxon lane where lanes end
where books open and sequences begin read across read through
and read until the coffee is cool and when the windows sigh
there is no light left just night a low moon and walking
across the car park the poets ahead he wondered if they’d dance
feet shuffling through gravel to the beep of their car doors unlocking
and the distant breath of windows closing for the night has taken hold.
for the dallas cowboys

this morning’s new light
over the mackerel smooth orange juice
cumberland sausage
wondered at his father’s face
how large it was moon
jupiter distant nebula
unmatched whatever happened to that man
just his mother’s brief synopsis
little else
not on the field
hurling discuss to its end
when the sweat is dripping
elsewhere a shingle beach
men standing sinking stuck in sand
men stuck in clay great metal men
it dripped a cloth to his head
I’ll find your father in the salty sweat
now one step more towards
breakfast on friday
kippers eggs two rounds of toast a sip
of red grape juice shared.
sirens

leave it
like the bellowing of jericho
a cylinder
in its reflection a figure
stretched out nude her face
her bobbed hair this familiar brunette
her face in the gaps
onto remote split
wood against naked flesh
shoulder it decibels volts
from the sound of it the heave of it
what covers her feet? legs?
the curve of some goddess search for it
there are two hands taking the burden.
again

we had a wall all layered bricks council red
graffiti stained chipped
the seat from the gwladys street end
peeling blue paint
crowds thronging
hanging from girders
gorky gorky
in black against the cold
they urge to cross to leave
flanked by kristallnacht
and gone synagogues that the bell rang
often
told the wound to get picked
pick him up drag him west.
pentecôte toulouse

swim hard cross a motorway
in lancashire an attempt
further south closed off
inevitably reopened
and when she finally rang
said others could read
the intonation
better
broke as a dropped plate
all the young artists
de-constructing art just as jowl heavy
take away charcoal take
it from their hands
leave a mark on their fingers
black and grey and fades in time
once there was toast
now there are only crusts
tomorrow there’ll be toast again no doubt.
semiconductor

at least a portion of it
its pulse
detecting that slight rise
slight increase when
brought together like
being too drunk we waver
pass into and out of the chamber
taken down wrapped in white
sheets and marks remain
later tested and dated
pass into and out of the chamber
wherein the passageway includes
the maximum of light
for the removed for the passing
slid through that passageway with his arm
against stone transfer received
this invention concoction relates
to methods and those methods
already in place are then let fall.
earlestown

december 14th four days before your birthday
in the early morning at earlestown
only hours after the pub over the way was filled with tit tasselled strippers
the footbridge into the estate closed a chalk line boy sleeping his heart a red stain
clutching my chest I fell to the bathroom floor
later calmer still aware of what the pain had felt like sudden indigestion
I slept and leaning over the bed lifted a glass to my lips blindly chipping a tooth
december 14th the sea falling against the bay like a wailing broken mother.
llandudno junction

in llandudno for a wedding
scotch warm what little ice there was melted
drawn aware by a drunk couple arguing the bite of him screaming her name
to watch the sleeping orme wake to light’s touch
later there was deganwy across the harbour
its gulls with bold hops tempted by fallen chips
beneath sea-mimicking sky
sips of champagne this heat clutching a stem from an unwatched tray too drunk.
lime street

sleeping worm its coils continuing below into hidden pointless tunnels
as I crossed lime street the old cinema pounding with music
the vendor reheating another sausage turning burnt onions
he got out of the car and pointing a finger called me solomon
wisdom got lost somewhere down by woolworths
the pavement gum-scarred and a line of liquid trickling
spitting two children watch as their saliva drops their judgement a mess of phlegm
separated cut in two what remains is hidden behind forgotten subterranean doors.
manchester victoria

there is a slight crack in the glass not a drop of rain falling through
her breasts are like hills the pennines in the distance
rise and fall with each sip of white wine
poured from a small bottle blush of cheeks the chill night reaching us
with a kink in its neck
craning to hear the next station cakes illicit arrivals
a heart unblocked a valley beside ebbing engines
england is there slim at her waist brick after brick bordered by a black sea.
cressington

I have the leap in my leg of somebody going out
for thursday drinks boarding the 5.40 train to get there
forward from here are henning’s german beers these are pure and good
are the girls pawing and panting husbands pawing back these are pure and new
in disuse the cracked drinking fountain stuffed with balled up newspapers
where the track bends some creak of wheel on steel comes
and falling coins are let drop to the rails abandoned pennies given over to disuse
we board below the footbridge.
ormskirk

church of a worm for a worm or like cenwulf it is his land his good soil
when we walked up dark lane the abandoned plough in the white fallow field
so turning found a tree for rest solitary and the beacon in the distance
as a schoolgirl slipped down a muddy bank her friends dancing
wiping my feet seeing a bloody and burst worm amongst the shook off mud
ducking beneath low beams tarred chipped dents off knocked heads
the stone grey parrot mocks another skew whiff dart snaps at the rims of pint glasses
it is that snake’s chapel sole fallen beneath lone trees uncovered by falling children.
colwyn bay

dead end restaurant panelled over and the chip pan brimming with oil going stale
by colwyn he pedals to the pig town
to cut diamonds industrial heavy legs labouring up the promenade
and at toad hall we stop for a nip and sit in silence as the sea batters our beginnings
they shatter with the slightest pressure slide down the ramp into the water squall thrashing
like the fish that are never seen beneath the pier just scoured shell and bone
instead of waiting and watching battered love we could share a vinegar soaked cod.
in order
to understand the reason
a release needs to happen
as easily as breathing
the tree stands below light
allowing only particles
to filter through becoming
a barrier men tremble
against it and imagine
all kinds of gods
who come at night
as visions full of words
and messages lying
still beside them
is their restful wife
breathing untroubled softly

translation is the problem
these messengers ask
men to process obedience
our one desire is to listen
to wake and pull curtains wide
revealing a scene of
high tower blocks guarding
withered branches letting others
know there is structure despite
her closed lips in her sleep
never parting or promising to
become barren
this is not light filtering
through fog onto wet tarmac
disbelief is caught amongst
leaves as water or some
other unknowable atom will.
and opposed to this
is a more widely read
essay passed from hand
to hand as we sat in traffic
until travelling through hills
looking out over wales
there is something faint
a flickering newly lit beacon
the vast promise of evening ignited
ideas are closely read examined
some appear in newspapers
lifted from denser magazines
the crossword we both attempted
is half done most letters lead nowhere
maybe it will be completed later
but for now we drive home
and it remains a frustrating maze

I only read the essay briefly
was distracted by it my pen ran dry
skimming less worrying words
I pictured puppets pulling at strings
not for release but for the feel
of the strings their resistance
and then you made a point
to mention the flowers
we never put in a vase
as we crossed into england they wilted
parched petals remembered as
full for our celebration briefly
they had a purpose when I gave them
a sign of love neglected
in their pint glass desert the bled water
of their brightness now murky
and stagnant they wait for our return
I looked out to the lights of a power station
intruding on the night’s youthful darkness.
in the space
of a week two things have
happened one is forgotten now
the other is persistent
chastises memory
it is this as I leaned into
the bathroom mirror I thought
of how unfaithful my own reflected
image can be it does not express
the smell of cigars or the layer
of a night’s drinking imitating clay
clinging to my teeth
when the camera was exposed
I refused to see the pictures
blocked them out and ignored
how light was caught developed
and moulded I pushed my tongue
across a molar felt crags like mountains

we reached the bus stop too late
the church’s shell early rain
lines of water in streams down
the hill as a drunk swore into a bin
holding his crutch like a lover
then threw it into the road
you waited standing on the other side
of the shelter from where my words
were blocked by a perspex shield
rain pushed its sound at the walls
of the supermarket and takeaway
a dry brittle leaf meandered
through rain fed ephemeral rivers
falling to traffic as the approaching bus
turned towards us its engine
drowning out another awkward apology.
and as some
other atom clings
mine is drawn to that vanishing
point away from the familiar line of shadow
as if to question its coexistence
with severed touch.
huyton
of the neatly planned rows where our walls touch
and when our fences in strong winds fall
we are joined garden to garden

beyond the curving dragon-spine of this street
is a river well hidden below our beds
well-stored below our carpets
once wide enough to tempt raiding danes inland

and when the liverpool train calls out from across town
we hear it though a gap in the sleeping worm’s back
the sound rises from just past the o’hara house
somewhere near the alleyway beside st. aidan’s
through the arches though they are shut and locked

we call it the river’s keening
and know that this is fine
it will cry from time to time.
remembrance
I forgot to remember them today
was too busy moving boxes clearing shelves
and roasting potatoes to notice the bells ringing
to see the muted news report to listen to the silence pass

I was awake by the eleventh hour yes
but did not think about my drowned uncles
oil filling their ears and water burning their skin
as I walked to town focused on forgotten ingredients
having written don’t forget dessert
on a scrap of envelope

I even passed two black coated veterans with poppies
in their lapels though I gave more thought
to the black hooded lads who lingered around
the underpass worried more about their hidden eyes
and what battles they sought today
did not imagine as I crossed towards £strecther
what my grandfather saw as he drove to belsen
still groggy from the wine he lifted the night before
from the general’s hamper

I was caught in rain coming home with full bags
and thought too much about getting drenched
so that I gave no time to understand my grandmother
as she watched her brother fade into fog
only to see her husband return from it
with a taste for drink and bad memories


I forgot to remember them today
just as I have forgotten them every other day.
from hare in winter
timid hills lead the hand
hare run and run
and jerk your maddened legs

wall and brick and mud have passed
the same elsewhere as here
spasms reactions to the land

settling snow and soon slurry
the hidden frost the cold mind
expecting warmth
aching against itself to be led
or to scrawl at least

what happens is a grasping
at image or scene       any will do
the train moving along the dee all frozen
the allure of stretched leopard print
over stretched thighs and laughter

the daughters out to play
bare legs and bare barren language
of letting the lads look
stay with the still world
or leave it
these marks
will make themselves elsewhere.
from o’connor’s slip

murky water
will flow
through any pipe
lick any metal
smooth or jagged
enough to tear trousers

that water will flow on
wash wounds
mingle with the shit
that fills all toilets
and is flushed away
from bathroom bravado.
from after the club
the germans the turks the italians who came
only that year that summer on that field

gribalo or glodoalan (he ruled his own legend)
don antonio el ingles
each one of the ovitz girls   in her remade

a lost daughter’s hood
some swooping baron of the sky
and all of those lands east of the plains

how cold was the wind          how long the walk
how dark the night             how distant the bed

there drops her handkerchief her token
discarded in the road
taken up by wheels not gallantly not gallantly

the hill looks over the old factory
the heat of copper still hot in the air
the hollowed home for the old for secrets
lions of silence unticking clocks
steady spire steady spire
and all the dogs running down the path
between the graveyard the grammar school
and the copper still melting
for heat alone.
from huyton
of the cruelty of angles
how the curved road
beckons
and blinds and binds

out back
the fallen fences
the broken spine
have pulled down trees
mesh of angles
throw a net
over that writhing beast

up out of the earth
rides a boat
high on clay waves
going viking


the assailants followed the victim..
…bell lane they proceeded to kick
and hit…broken beer bottle…
like a football…into the pavement

groan of time   groan of time.
from deganwy before rain
herring gulls I thought
but it was summer

black headed gulls
on decks on masts
on strewn food
the rain clouds rolling over
from ireland

or there is deganwy blackened out
by full bellied clouds
and hungry herring gulls
and bold beaks darting

the same sharp movements
of hands grabbing ice creams
queues jostling into the smallest house
bodies in bed in the night
when the storm finally came
when there was greed the same
and greedily wanted by both

and eyes darting over the harbour
back to the page
then over the harbour again.
from the cormorants

coaxed in land to fish
dripping oil from black feathers
outlines of fable.
from the dead roman (with sylvia plath in mind)
buried dug up dragged from the earth
scattered so even your lover can’t find you
above you are the bones of lost animals mosaic tiles
a king’s death mask unexploded bomb ticking

now a soup is stirred that spice here
this spice there ladled into bowl after bowl
belly after belly filled you cannot taste it

stood on exposed written up read on the train
you are neat for connections to be made.
from pier lights seen from the imperial hotel
mangled mutated words
around the headland way off into the night
are more of them
sheltering from the sea’s pushed on wind
in hollows on the hillside
in caves quarried out of the cliffs

the lights dance along the pier
like we did not dance
the woman dances to her taxi
her husband whirling her crutch
they hobble home together

and the swirling ice
mingles with this harsh water
drained down

that beast does not know its name
sleeps whilst the world tramples over it
dances over it mopes over it.
from clodius and clodia
well burnt the senate…long smouldering embers

cut grass shredded cans
chip paper and textbooks blown from a skip
smoke heavy on the burner’s chests
ash and scarred ground
where the wild flowers later bloomed
still the field was marked
with a wound and the boggy land spread
wild flowers were mown to mulch
and concrete laid
up it went all girders and glass
for a short time mimicking pillars
open to all who would wander in
and then the cars came they hauled up a sign
they gave it opening hours
and still from time to time
the whole thing would sway
towards the field and the burnt ground
where still their gathered
cut grass shredded cans
chip paper and torn text books
from the school hollow and unwelcoming
ever empty of thought.



.
from afternoon drink in garston
arthritic hands and knees bending grasping
here is a blurring of borders
of where the boats once came
of where they cut coal
of where the river was so shallow
they could rest and find shelter

the horse’s stink doesn’t last
just the arches they passed under
the old doors
through to where hooves were shod

no echoes no voice carried along
just the chatter of arab students
washing their chinese cotton shirts
with cheap irish soap powder
draining czech lager

accent and stress and mimic
trip over syllables
that seemed to fit so well on the page
welcoming whiteness
ink flowing like a worked river
down comes a barge full of images
up comes a boat full of language
in from the sea out to the sea
with no tempest to break their bows
no storm to drown their load.
from toppled church – an interrupted haiku
brittle bricks danced away
chiselled mourned-for faded names

(there are graves in panama poverty pots
all souls poured in
and the cavalier’s grave is cracked
through his title and birth
and empty
beneath it are tunnels
filled with what’s left of lost slaves
staying where they slept)

a bed from what’s been drunk.
from fox watcher
there is rumour of a man
watching foxes
hiding by railway tracks
in bushes near the park
cupping his hand for the match to last
then walking back the way he came

fleetingly from an alley
to the cover of a bin
taxi lights brighter than a torch
chase russet chase movement

in edinburgh on granite
a fox whimpered by the road
rice and curry sauce caking him
and another running through delamere
above it a hawk distant and dark
a bike engine frightening them both

someone had dumped plastic bags
in the park they were blown
everywhere in clumps and separate

one caught on a branch
one stained with meat
and laden by chicken bones

he pulled at my shirt
as I lit his cigarette
he tried to take a bone
from his coat show me bite marks
the gnawed at.
from from moorfields beyond maghull
their bodies caressed far from
these tracks and bridges
shaped and given a coat metallic shining
they are left cold and unmoving

rough lovers watched by silent walkers
and the sleeping bodies
amongst the coupled and forced apart

nothing to wake for
and so bed sheets cling and cover
rolled up like cigarettes
dropped to streets
filled tightly
with swept up tobacco in factories
by the dammed river beneath the yellowed sky
and heaving they cough

in black of tunnel
we move into light of day
away

from the sun falling behind
warehouses
and then a dog running through
tall grass
hiding hares
hidden adders

from the last liverpool station
and the twin- spire horizon
comes the copied slang
the messaged talk of cut up words

and sleeping still
they these shining bodies
catching the light as it lessens
are left cold unmoving
forgetful of caresses
of their nakedness once
raw shells of harsh metal.
deganwy before rain

there is deganwy across the harbour
here are gulls with bold hops
tempted by fallen chips
beneath sea-mimicking sky.the   cormorants
they are being drawn in land to fish
leaving sea and harsh waves for our gentle streams
their wings outstretched amongst reeds on river bends
they are dark outlines of fable in the distance the cormorants

freshwater drips from their oil black feathers
eels grayling and little grebes are waiting for them
out at sea fishermen are searching empty skies for them
wading anglers along river banks are cursing the cormorants

darting into rivers diving unaware they are unwanted
returning with the joy of never before tasted fish
their wings outstretched amongst reeds on river bends
they are dark outlines of fable foretelling some end once distant the cormorants.
dead roman
I read of a dead roman how heavy rain pushed his coffin up
through layers of time to face fresh air and disturb sunday after-dinner walkers
his teeth this dead roman hide secrets of the east spices tasted long ago
when he was a child of bacchus osiris or some other now scattered god.

his mother no longer bakes bread or stirs his favourite soup those meals are forgotten
and the temples of his devotion are broken mithradates is a second hand name
passed on only in pages not in the half-latin spoken in cold northern garrisons
as it was before the sword fell before age crept before winter took him

he was buried this dead roman with care and tightly sealed in peaty soil
only to be uncovered put nameless in papers for commuters to gawp at
for the story of his rising mud-caked to be told of his forgotten epitaph
we know not how he came here only that he was roman and died long ago.
pier lights seen from the imperial hotel
in llandudno for a wedding scotch warm
ice melted drawn aware to watch
the sleeping orme wake to light’s touch.
afternoon drink in garston
through the fog are the dormant dockside cranes
grasping at nothing but the chill of air and the red setting sun

dog-dirt fragrances the air and speckles the pavement
someone has written I love here on a boarded up window

and light-fading day has led my feet to the old stables
where drilling they cut the lights and silence song

blame each other for this catastrophe no one notices me
and alone its sole customer I focus on the local paper

ringing advertisements and less enthusiastically
ringing jobs until the last of the pint is sipped

returning home the radio plays an old poet.
long dead he words these things as pou-em

and I’m reminded of manchester of a ribble man
whose every word was of kaleidoscopes and confusion

his dull voice pronounced each long ill-formed verse
as pou-ems and we waited to be lost in colours and in shapes

in mytholmroyd in huddersfield in new england
are the echoes of that oddity that something I cannot know.
toppled church

once in a ring around the church the children cheered
hands joined they faced away from their towering god
whose bricks were brittle and crumbling anyway
soon to topple and fall like those circling children
exhausted even as their parents and priest called
for them to dance on their dizzying love

how brittle was it made this place?
the graves are all fallen and moss buried
the chiselled mourned-for names have faded
and nothing is remembered of reason or of reckoning
of why the stones were quarried cut from hidden cradles
deep below the godly land craved by the mason’s hand

the steeple fell one winter in a storm not yet forgotten
when trees came crashing upon the cars of caring wives
and the water threw itself upon the land
like a desperate discarded mistress crying on
now the church is a hollow den for lost cats
and men who drink and sleep beside what’s been drunk

why did it fall so easily so desperate to be unmade
at the wind’s softest touch at time’s slightest nudge
at the whim of forgetfulness and those who do not come
to sing and cry for the rocks so craftily hewn
to dance for the steeple risen and the cross it carried high
to be amongst the earth’s hard children who keep the world away?

it seems to suit this hollowness this nothing place it has become
it has toppled all that is left are these fallen heathen stones.
from moorfields beyond maghull
through kirkdale
where railway workers’ cars
and trains in disrepair are at rest
then passing beneath a heavy other-century bridge
stones washed dirty by time
the bridge kissing a young still shining slightly
steel walkway
upon which crossing feet are silent
for fear of disturbing these rough lovers

there are arches filled with dead tracks
and bricked up doorways
cut into the man made valley’s walls
lead only to stories
of strange long-laboured tunnels
hidden below dead-end streets
and the curtained windows of still houses
who knows who wakes and works
who sleeps and slumbers out there

in black of tunnel
we move into light of day
and still the train is driven on
coupling jolting
towards that lancashire I know
through visits and the shared memory
of a sundered son
of a metropolitan child unloved
away from fading rusted railings
canary yellow benches
cloistered god-hungry suburbs
with odd-angled churches
all new and ephemeral
towards the lessening rain
as it patters upon the frosty platform
of the last liverpool station

now the fields that go by
with their water filled boundaries
and the twin-spire horizon
are for others to know and own
they speak with half familiar accents
with copied slang they roam this town.
elpenor
not cracked like an egg for nourishment
so the yoke expands beyond its walls
still ungrown
but stunted before being given the benefit of light
entanglement with life

poor elpenor! drunk stumbling
still serenading the night before
with his weakly tolerance exhausted
shocked awake awoken to death

with a blink of his eyes there was light
then darkness lack of life

with a blink of his eyes there were his crew mates below sleeping
then darkness and his own sleep
restless endless sleep

until some steady voice some selfish captain
will call and elpenor will sleep no more

now I am elpenor not snapped at my neck’s nape
crumpled into dirt
dried by foreign suns uncomfortable rays
crumbled to return
smoke shrouded and dim in hades’ hollow hiding hole

rather I am elpenor drunk on the roof
before his fall stumbling still
desiring something which sleeps below
which sleeps far below and away

with a blink of my eyes there was light
now darkness lack of seeing
with a blink of my eyes there was the lightness of careful words
said with meaning and to an audience that slept
below and away

now there is darkness and it is poor elpenor they call mistakenly
to wake
not for me to see sleep’s time has passed
to wake no more yet never sleep
it is for elpenor they beg to open the fallen world.
vulpes vulpes
       an unsteady sonnet   foolishly cut

what glimpse of her did I catch through the after rain window?
an auburn silhouette just going suddenly obscured by leaf
and there is that russet dog we both fed fruit to
little inquisitor of guilt he knows my lies have shattered
love now affected as all love is by words
just gone how can she know I call for her return?
and yet she does come home
two tea-bags rust bleed copper rivers into the sink
affably we hold our cups for warmth
carry our blame to bed two silhouettes as one
outside that red dog runs from car headlights
we keep our fruit he fades into the night.
john dolphin

I can’t tell you much about john dolphin
other than how I’d been told that he was born not long before me
with a porpoise’s head how apart from that he was a normal child
but his mother could never hold him and no home would ever take him
         or
how he lives on that peninsula of land beyond the river
where norse-blooded bandits once shut off that border bulwark
spike of bee-stung finger stiffly aware of the touch of too near digits
caught there jutting in wait of the throb’s subsidence
         or
how john dolphin made a home on a pebbled beach
where seaweed snaked between smoothed gaps
and hermit crabs drifted in scraped out rock pools
how he jealously watched those easy to home wanderers
         or
how he’d sit on the dunes at sun’s rising and setting as shelducks flew to hoylake
and he’d feel the wind shift the sand and watch how the year’s ebbing
froze the marram and lyme grass to brittle blades as deep-water drowning natterjacks
in cacophonous harmony trilled a chorus that carried his forgotten mother’s cooing
         or
how one day I saw him standing over a dead portuguese man o’war
as I reached a cove of cliff-touching sand and pebble from where I couldn’t go on
so turning I saw his ever-wet and silver-grey head held low and empty eyed
taking in the slab of broken pier wall that had caved in that jelly fish
         or
how he was wearing outgrown and tattered jeans marred with sea-grime
and decorated with sewn on cockle and hydrobia shells hanging by hornwrack threads
how he knelt then and that his chest was bare and with his porpoise jaw opening
he lifted the stone and tossed it aside back to the incoming tide as a godwit cried
         or
how he carefully began to peel away the seaweed that had embedded in the lump
then closing his comb toothed mouth he laid his hand on the wrecked caravel
and as he knelt in his reverence I climbed the dunes away from the fast returning water
that lapped around him like he was a rock a shell a part of the shore caught detritus
         or
how he didn’t move as the sea swallowed the day beneath a tyrian darkened horizon
and let the water lap at his shell covered jeans rise to his sand yellowed chest
how I turned away and didn’t watch as he was cradled by his salt-wet mother’s embrace
as his tide returned for him and his murmurs echoed out into the sea.
the hunting party

it was dalrymple who was up first at the crack of dawn
hefting a blunderbuss from the boot of his volvo estate
he set out across dew layered fields towards a shrouded copse
where he said early walkers liked to pause and watch the dawn
told us how when the bullets spread and ripping thermals embedded deep
in barbour jackets and jodhpurs their cries sounded just like pheasants
bewildered cackles and crows cutting through the thicket as stragglers took flight

plump old beauchamp got going next his hounds baying to be unleashed
their noses already sniffing out the familiar stink of village lads
those hints of playground spliffs and spilt stella dregs
their ears pricked for the faint yelp of subwoofed citroens
once unchained they’d be gone a mass of starving barks moving as one
with old beauchamp on his grey coming after them his colt loaded already
later there’d be no limp quarry just old beauchamp looking fatter fuller thirsty

baldcock was awake for nine still heavy with the stovies he’d scoffed
and coming outside he held his bolt-action winchester lowered to his side
a cigar unlit its end bit between his teeth he winked at us but said nothing
then went out to stalk a sheep farmer like a stag up near where the mountains
melted into moors and there were crags and ditches where men who knew the land
could hide that was why baldcock only ever hunted famers the older ones were best
stalked until dusk when hungry he’d line them in his sight and feel the rifle’s silenced kick

wilbraham and watmore were knife men the blade was in their hearts
they’d no need to rush off so early when orienteering scouts
never got cut off and lost until noon their troop neckerchiefs fluttering
saying here we are smoking by this knoll just two of us kissing flasks for warmth
slowly wilbraham and watmore would stroll in plain sight their knives
glinting off the high sun covered by cloud like a negative white disk brighter for its skulking
the scouts would see of course but what can small boys do when two men know steel so well?

I was last to leave so it was nearly dark when I revved the quad bike
so mud sprayed over my season stained boiler suit those old marks of the hunt
the red of troubled ramblers the crimson of country-contented dog walkers
this year I wanted new colours I wanted the lucid rosiness of lakeside lovers
their hearts pumping with that clearer red scented liquid of lust called desire
to those love-ducks resting with arms like wings outstretched through reeds I waded closer
imagining them laid out in the kitchen their pleasures plucked their love gutted.