Here the capital letter hauls
There the comma fails
Here an exclamation of surprise
The pause is sick in my throat
I say a bleak hole
Swallows yoke and fell
And rules:-dots and days
The kiss on a cheek
And bison all in
And there surveyors stand
Measuring precaution
Spectators stillborn
Readymade for reinvention.
Count out
Birthed in debt
accounts of regret
child to calculate
mouthfuls of abacus
bites and scores
Creatures of the Sea
Poems. Strange world where
We move differently
That one resembles a horse
That one, a star
We desire
Pattern and shape
Under the sea we surface
To gasp fear
Others bring oxygen
And stay under
Forever.
Kept Kitten
Keen eyes feast on morning song
Seasoned with flight and plume
King Knut the great and cute
Gathering winter fuel.
Seed
The seed will not rear its pretty head,
It slips into poems I haven’t read
Though well-watered and amply fed
The soil’s warmth’s its fatal bed.
What is this seed
That will not sprout?
Up with you and out
Rise with the sun
And shun objectless lust
And writhe out from the settled dust.
I could not stop to think
Because I could not stop to think
Thought kindly took me in
And taught me how to Contemplate
Inside the chattering din.
We found a little Quiet Place
Underneath a Tree
And there all things passed us by
Like Eternity.
For Centuries I stayed with Him
But seemed like just a Day
We watched the planets come and go
Through the Milky Way
We heard the children laugh and play
Cicadas sang their song
The summers danced round winter grief
I felt the whole Earth’s throng.
I touched the ground with fingertip
I scarcely felt the urge
And Earth responded suddenly
With awful thundering surge
Awakened all my mind to naught
Thought looked on in terror
Spirits hid in foliage
And trembled at my error.
But much to Our relief
From out of shattering Blindness
The Clouds transformed to Rain
And soaked us in their Kindness.
3 o’clock
Look at that house
where I live and make these thoughts move
like clouds overhead
be kind they said
but then sink instead
like smog
cicadas swoop and fall
seeking rhythm
the tick and tock
the children arrive
and turn surprised
to see me outside
at 3 o’clock.
Man lying on a wall
Man Lying on a Wall (1957) by LS Lowry
A moment of joy lifts him
from pavement onto factory wall
from straight to horizontal he paints
a line into his fag and he and
the chimneys smoke and
the clock tower strikes
and the bus pulls up
and we all journey home
through soot and chill, but he’s
not going anywhere soon. A man,
lying in state balancing his hat
like a crown on his belly
for all the world and his dog
to see. The steady fall and rise
of middle-age. Brolly and briefcase
stand to attention,
ready for battle
against the hazy smog, the stretcher bond
of bricks and mortar. A sense,
then, of contemplation
only wants an artist
by chance on the top deck
of a bus passing and then this painting
for us to remember him by.
I wrote this parody of the poem ‘Man Walking’ by Owen Lowry in October 2013.
Walk along the beach
Live without pretenses, live
So that, finally,
You draw towards yourself the love
Of space, hear the future.*
One should walk along the beach
and see winter spacing itself between
people, but don’t fill in the gaps. Leave them
to chance and feel the sand between your toes,
sinking into soft ambiguity. Others may find your
path, step inside, perhaps, but keep to yours,
seaweed on one side and the tide, inching
closer, on the other until your paths
converge (it won’t retreat or apologise)
and your feet are fully submerged.
Your footprints will disappear without trace
and, finally, you can say I live.
I may walk this beach again, but, until then,
I live in the margins of time and place.
*Boris Pasternak, “To be famous isn’t decent” Translation by Bob Perelman and Kathy Lewis in Glad and Weissbort (1978),Russian Poetry: The Modern Period
.
The fairy was past caring
and – half-dazed – smiled.
Captain America swung on his thread,
ready to catch her. It was a good idea
to put the tree near the window. See the crystals
catch the light and the clouds.
At night, I dream of you. You do what I do,
which is odd, but the brain gathers
and tends to both memory and fantasy the same.
Nobody thinks twice or makes sense.
Planes carry on taxiing down country lanes
trimming hedges with their wings.
