Month: Jun 2020

The tap of a long-dead
long, dead finger

flickering from a not-
quite-human hand

as eyes of all sizes
grow in the dark

and go deeper deeper
into the trees

A low light across these emptied fields
last of the grasses, rubrication
and an inking-in as hedgerows yield
their harvest: the earth in rotation

The bramble in flower and fruit and thorn
the cyclamen and naked crocus
thick in the borders as a leaf turns
to be read: an opening of books

Sometimes, they don’t even leave the car park.
Waylaid by ruderals, the party stops
to hoist aloft their finer points; there’s talk
of Stace and variable phenotypes.
Sometimes, the flower hasn’t read the book
and foliage is pressed between the leaves
of Poland for a later, longer look;
stigmas are present, but the style deceives.
Always, there is difference and debate,
niceties to stimulate the knowing,
young, and necessary disbeliever;
so, heads down, with mysteries at their feet,
slowly they turn their keys upon this Kingdom,
green and growing, going on forever.

Previously published in BSBI News 122 (2013)

“Ask me no questions
I’ll tell you no lies”
a peep in the bag means
a ruined surprise

Out in the meadow
a circle of stones
is lying in wait for
the planet’s return

The hunter approaches
and raises the net
the windows are open
the traps are all set

Over the hedgerow
comes floating the moon
the village is sleeping
the stones have all gone

The girl he presumed on
is busy intently
tearing to pieces
the letter he sent

Time for a rest

Here we walk
the paths of desire

the woods at midnight
not alone

a Liebestod
too soon inspiring

sunlight moonlight
flesh and bone

We haven’t met yet, yet
you move in my mind; your
skin gear, your grubby socks
your cock in the private
pics, tattoos, the offer
of musky, scruffy sex

No distance away, no
limits; just click to say
yes to the predator
yes to your foxy grin
as you stalk in silence
the hungry, fearless flocks

Where to begin with such an ending?
Artful and sly, slowly pulling free
from us, watching the horizon curve
as blue becomes black, becomes the Earth,

A body of work retires, returns.
What’s it worth, such a back-catalogue
of airs and grace, of close encounters
of the heard kind, music of the spheres?

Much more than we can ever replay.
For myself, I own these memories:
Apollo, and the Eagle’s landing,
sex and rapture, and a world allowed.

Pretty thing, pretty flighty
number, thorn in my flesh;
where are you off to now, whore?

Who’d have you, you washed-up, sick
near-naked refugee?
Nothing is fun anymore.

Sometimes, it is hard to breathe
while the children are playing
these death-dances. Parody
for now beyond the reach of
their talent, the music stays
honest and true; their song says
yes the day is beautiful
enjoy life   abide with me

Here the element behaves.
Its trophies honour him; the noise
(sea-trumpets, bells beneath the waves)
is distant but clear. Sailor boys
are busy at the water’s edge
with sandcastles or something, and
idly the tide comes in to fetch
them back. Women walk hand in hand
behind him. It is rather warm.
A shell has opened at his foot.

Islands there are, and sirens, storms…
Here Neptune wears a three-piece suit.

Previously published in the British Medical Journal (1977)

A silver-chased baroque pearl
on its crystal mount
threatens with a tiny fork

cunningly contrived whalebone
and sealbone   coral trove
sparkles in a new setting

a gilded wafering nautilus
on which is engraved (in Latin)
ship of fools

not locus if you will but envelope

I feel your whisper’s touch- which is absurd;
all talk is parallel, it has no end.
We never meet, imprisoned in our words.

We are oblique; our passions pass unheard
above the chatter, all we comprehend.
I feel your whisper’s touch, which is absurd.

Hear the deceit in confidences shared,
the distances, the partners that pretend;
we never meet, imprisoned in our words.

All our untruths, spoken or inferred,
form fortresses, a wailing wall. Deafened,
I hear your whisper’s touch- which is absurd.

And yet, and yet. Perhaps my space is curved,
the dumb can utter, brittle silence bend;
we never meet, imprisoned in our words.

Complicating, splendid, undeserved,
this language speaks to me of ladders, and
I feel your whisper’s touch (which is absurd,
we never meet) imprisoned in your words.

In Behlehem and long ago
the angels walked upon the snow

God was their neighbour; in His youth
He spoke the pregnant virgin truth

but later, when He came of age
He talked of Hell and sacrilege

In Bethlem now the angels sing;
the wise men think of everything.

I count to one, you count to three
the bones fall partially

the green the spinning table rakes
there are no mistakes

no end of it and many ways
to the uncomforting baize

where more is less, lack, loss
our bodies calcinous

however articulate, they
lie now, have had their say

Previously published in PN Review 163 (2005)

I: CORAL

I went and came
of each thing asking
the name

II: SIGN

My sign is Death: I, however, bear
an inner balance, an alliance
of solitude with outerworldly things.

III: HANDS

Hollow with having
Stretched with desire
Fresh with abandonment
Rapt with surprise
Restless with touching and not taking

IV: ON THE LOVE OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

With your span I measured out the world
And in the just balance of your shoulders
Hung the sun’s gold, the pallor of the moon

V: CANTE JONDO

Moonless the night whereon my love departed
Nameless those who will carry through the streets
The bare now lifeless body that was mine

VI: PENELOPE

It is in the dark that I unpick my way.
All of this weaving, none of it is true
but merely time spent killing time.
Each day how far, each night how very close indeed.

VII: BARE FACE

Bare face in direct light

Left face, suspended, permeable
In slow osmosis
Mouth open as if for drinking
Attentive head

Unmade face
Unrefusing face wherein nothing is justified
Face given to the agony of command
Face that voices penetrate

Sluggish face
Presentiment that orchards might secrete
Abandoned and transparent face
As greeted by the blackest nights of love

Long shafts of coldness dart upon the sea
In silence the landscapes are exalted
And solitude is stony to the touch

Lost face
Buried there by the bitter winds of thirst
Lamented by the purest ocean waves

VII: MORNING

As the fruit displays
if cut in two
the freshness of its heart

so does the morning
I am about to start.

IX: L’AGE D’AIRAIN

Slowly, slowly, before the light
charged with shadows and with weight
your body, shuddering to its root.

The tips of your fingers bear a flight
in the wind’s vertex, and at first light
lost to your fingers, there a wing beats.

I: PYRAMID

To crush: to pierce: to commemorate:
it has construed them all. Numbered from much
to nothingness, a figure is described
within the focus of its undoing.

II: SPIRAL

out of its pitch and fall
a voice in the stair-well

a shell speaks   hide in me
hardness is bodily

hardness   a forged retreat
is there no end to it?

III: CURVES

are for following
around (if needs must)
the bend smilingly

often the product
of square formulae
they are infinite

and of no matter
if then plotted then
always inexact

I: HORIZON

It is an angle of attack
the line an argument might take
for some it is a winning streak

It is the sliver of pure black
where saints and sailors disembark
somewhere to rest or a long walk

II: MNEMONIC in remembrance of me

Speechless, they gather to be fed
to lay the tables in the head
to cover them with flesh and blood

Arresting images indeed
idiots, lips moving as they read
the dead feasting upon the dead

III: EXPLORAÇÃO

It was too strange to be ignored
was too desirable for words
it was the startling cry out loud

America. New-found reward.
A silence promptly overpowered
by speakers of the True Word.

IV: INTERIOR

One by one the fingers curl
clench unclenching round the bowl.
A teacup clatters and is still.

Christ you drive me up the wall
How an argument can fill
this empty house a new hell.

Previously published in PN Review 163 (2005)

the failing heart
the distant rock
the voyage out
the swimming back

the empty sand
the hollow word
the shaken hand
the flaming sword

the ass’s jaw
the wooden horse
the open door
whose name is loss

Heathchester is tense and sullen. He knows.
Seduced by a governess at three, his start
in life was not a very good one.
Saturn is afflicted in his chart.

The servants are speechless and grim. They know.
But why does Mrs Danvers climb the tower
to wave her candle in the dark?
Every night, food is left at the back door.

His new bride is plain and worried. She knows
nothing. The housekeeper shows her up
and gives her only half the keys.
She tests the bed and thinks about lost sheep.

What is the meaning of it all? God knows.
The moon has clouded over, and the mire
claims yet another hungry soul.
Someone in the attic starts a fire.