It's late.

Swirling lights, tattoos and ruddy skin,

laughs and pictures

leaning crazily.

They could really do

with a room, roped off

on which to pontificate

gesticulate and share a million

and three secrets and stories

bled from the bowl that starts...

...and ends with your city face,

your birch frame and sweet breath,

patterned with detritus of dried

merlot,...

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III

Clump. Clump. Clump.

Careful with that carpet.

The sitting stool is taken.

Move the lights around.

In this drawer - here's a key.

Tobacco and moth flutter

and ivory, pass the violin

case. Put up with this sound.

Clump. Clump. Clump.

"Your wife, was she a proud woman?"

Adjust hat-stand

Circle smoking stall.

Rain patters on

and on and on and on and on...

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Up there in the swingers' district

where only the houses close their eyes

the mile of grass is an aired plain

every three lights one disappears

an interchange and a parting

a fox-fur collar fumbling at a door

open, shut, silence.

Late afternoon the cars glide

back from colour film and carpet ride.

Whistling twilight, the summer

is a newspaper frown.

You open the wi...

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Mauve fence

the snow on the other side

the breath of winter on your cheek

it happened today.

That screen

the table extended, creaking

beyond are lights and chatter

the salt shaken.

Your summer

is a bench and hamper

the camera does not lie

a blue beyond blue.

Slates falling

rain slips the roof

at night the warmth

the weather permitting.

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No, the moon does not keep me awake

at night, the torchlight, cracking your window

it may well be, can't say I'm otherwise aimless or free,

but such consolation are my lights on the road

that slopes away from us in gradual declines.

Give me your secrets tonight, pass me fire,

light to see your tumbling words by,

before the inner furnishings of your Fiesta

swallow and keep a...

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The morning is a castle mist,

a grey paint, ghost shroud.

Last night I dreamt we were lovers,

I took pen, paper, sealed green bottle,

wise and smiling, sucking the nib;

now suddenly I'm hunting down cracks,

placing my fingers inside and pulling-

(you said these fissures were only

a minor concern...slants

in the skirting, warm with the fading

central heating).

...

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Beneath primrose and violet sunscreens

vibrant passions bloom and wilt in some

patterned, noxious routine.

The fraternity lies athwart the boundary line,

lounging in heavy boulder sun-scape,

all in white except one, in green and black,

takes stick and slander with good heart,

gives as good as handed out.

I rise and stretch from the hearty crowd,

and slip up slanted turf,...

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Thought you'd want to meet me here,

a scion of Clint, Randolph and the boys,

a dirt speck on 1950s celluloid,

thought you'd want to meet me here,

a grin and laugh mired in static,

a rusty nail and worn-through rope,

a tired actor and a removal van,

outside, teetering on the kerb,

wash-and-go-and-go-spit-at-a-cat,

yeah thought you'd want to meet me here,

a long way fro...

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The water is terribly brown,

the water is terribly brown.

Beside the pool lie spread-eagled

academics, wearing terrible frowns,

cavorting in hideous gowns.

This is a lesson in three crowns,

the king, the knave, the clown,

poetic lineage watered down,

by a muddy lake on edge of town.

I'd like to see them falter,

trip up

and then drown.

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Swimming in cycles, I pattern an air;

dash, cross, the mimes of meeting,

they are a crime and I am a road-side

mottled hard, cracked paving,

the worse for wear, but a red light

lights my eye and guides my thought,

a spark in a second, a buzzing phone.

I throw out dust and paper, reels of film

sun-baked, reeling, cracked,

replace with seconds from the fountain,

hiding ...

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Hand in hand we walk

in a darkness carved from light,

the plastic trees surround

bottle-green, shadowed props.

Granting me light to see words by,

you count my vapour in the air,

the lingering space of hollow thought,

my burning questions left to float.

Later I will raise a hand and place it,

solid on a high glass wall;

from the floodlit boundary line,

there I ...

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With just enough light in the sky to take out

the newspapers of yesterday

and arrange them, padding in

the galvanised bin;

smoke twists

in a neighbour's garden -

I cup hand and call,

remark upon the vagaries of the weather

and the recent tree

felled on Cobb Hill.

In response I get a half-turn

and shoulder shrug, grunt

of some approximate affirmative,

and...

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Lunar light touches your cheek

soft curls paint a border-line,

seized in pastel, black, grey, white

the mirror creaks, leaves rustle

and beneath in store for us they keep

in a locked chest, waxed, sealed,

the list of names, none too grand.

War-torn, a leaf falling

red imprints on fog-mired turf,

the spiral here is waning,

stroking October oil's mist,

the tracks' ...

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A picture I saw on a patch of wall

Dust and dirt hid the edges, the frame faded

The shades of black, setting the tone.

Reminded now of this grim sight

When walking home in the early hours

Lights blazing from bungalows, the never-sleeping

The cul-de-sac stretched and warped

Through shadows on the green.

To stay and keep vigil by the postbox

A solemn red flecked with peeki...

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Foot-torn, the path of leaves.

Dead, borders are green, still.

I am white.  I turn.

I am now looking with paled eyes,

across a broken pit of river

up, above some untidy shack;

the train on the hill climbs,

smoke billows, a raincloud summoned

from beyond.

I turn back and see rows,

of autumn-blushed houses

fall silent on this minute.

You are only a passing mist.

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Recall through the face at the door

that saturday morning one solid blank

grey window, scrubbed slab

beyond, several feet and more

laid the catapult, a pointed edge

from a distant acre fed, wind-side.

The concentric pattern in velvet

curtain brushed my hand as I reached

to turn and swing, oiled lock routine

the knives of cold the comfort

between the welcome and rain

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Returning to my hotel room

the way arrayed with artless dust

settling at my wood-chewed seat

crafting a plan to hatch this eve

feeding the scar of cream curtain.

The depth of outside shatters within

voices ring out in stuck symmetry

the gramophone and a fiend's cackle

this draught declines my fervent plea

a brush so worn as to paint me cold.
 

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Errant in the dark, the telltale signs

we saw catapult us fifteen miles

through gulley and field

uproot and cascade, we now deem

a captured eye, a wind-blown scene,

so fresh, so free for all, and yet...

hot-bladed too, a line of fire

in this frenzied, war-torn age

a searing divide, a map, a point

as plain and unbroken as

you, my rock, my hallowed place

here be...

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I slip through
some would make it a pain
to see
all that would wash
against diamond lines
---their derision

I thought
that you'd make
flutterings
of a restless mind
no less grand
than your own scenery

Depths not yet plumbed
are better left a hollow square
the transparent is you
and I glide through the nothing
dreading the wall
...........................................

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A sign that is soaked in war, unheeded
Time once more will bring fuel for fire
Houses at home desert those as background
Holes now empty, listless as days

Again they will cry as the tales stay the same
Clues left scattered they skimmed high over
Truth scarce in a land of no simplicity
They ask, 'What are we going to do?'

True what are they going to do?
When they find paradis...

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Hey, and now bring me that ladder
As I descend into the bland peppermill
All corns black, with shrunken visage
A crystal glass cracks under the wooden crutch

She walks in the rain, palms direct a flume
Deluge in saccharine amputees, firelight trivia
Storms opened in the swirl of bourbon
A centurion pointed, the thundercloud advances

And as the umbrella detached from the Rolex
...

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I stand half-way, darting looks, searching,

beyond the crumbling barricade.

Across the carpeted way

(blood spilt drying by the day)

we nod in turn, ammunition bared.

The first shots cannon off chipped masonry,

reverberate, the fire-doors long-smashed,

to and fro and in our heads.

I must then run – and you behind –

above all cover, towards the bullets

as they melt away...

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The scarlet balloon lies limpid,

in tatters, spread out, ripped poppies

on the sunlit field;

amidst other flowers too, those

of children, saints, sinners, the overworked;

in dress for weekend leisure,

beyond the eaves of some high wood;

and some run across, stretched rubber

scuffed, faded, sole-imprinted.

Those that lived their names and-

saw day of fire follow d...

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A word to the wise, be of fleet foot

and still of moral creed.

Honing your witticisms for later days;

incandescent, vague, shaded faces;

locked possessions, fixed like art.

Carting away the prisoners of your youth,

telling them to turn, hands on heads;

prime and point, squint and begin the count.

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Crept up clinging incline, and I do my brow,

the effort is no effort to glimpse,

as breath shallow dapples thought with cycles

reverberating in machete-snapped winter air,

clasping crutches of lifeless branch,

as one steadies, through a gap man-size;

the space beyond the leafy partition, all

rows of neat border, mirror of none;

deserted as dusk welcomes me.

The scen...

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Part of this home has regressed, it has fallen

in and of its own beginning.  So we take footing

on ground hallowed, kept for the rapture,

and watch as the swallows dart in and out.

See through the field-glasses, the eyes blinking

through cracked mullion, beyond frosted counterpane;

the table broken in anguish back in youth’s day,

six centuries in she wept huddled in that ...

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Persistence with choked breath

is mere folly; true, here are the seeds,

black and misshapen, that I cast

To sprout in unhappy soil.

And true there is little way in which

to reach into this saintly space

and pull the perfection through.

I once tried to array myself

in the words and deeds of truth and justice.

Would that now were so, could that

complex translation ...

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You control my very mind.  You have

the remote control, you keep the medicine,

you take the keys to bed.

You always say

you’ll slip into something more comfortable

when you’re hands and knees beside the bush

of red roses, trowel, gloves, sweat;

but will not give the time of day –

Upon my return

in fumbling dark I seek out a light-switch

no longer there.

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Creep, crawl, silent, lay beside, in sun

thick through suburb upon suburb of choked thought.

The tunnel whereupon whispers, are false rainbows.

Some say rage is justly-founded, others twist

a blind eye and sleep, stretch, lazy dogs;

dead but moving, in painted shadow.

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The rain is found and lashes down in sheets,

dividing mimicries of certainty

for those of interested minds

(who may seek to have care

in a dry-token community).

Sanctified suns set over there

in pure districts framed by

‘near’ and ‘far’.

Licensed horror stalks a street

whereupon the homeless they may

raise a stake.

I seek nothing, in bare-boned form,

nothin...

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Delve deep, they dream, into artifice.

Leaking canisters of outrage,

the reflected torpor outside every garden shed.

Signs are written and held up

at intervals, proclaiming mute wisdoms:

‘GO HOME…’ ‘BRING BACK…’ ‘AND END TO…’

They do not waste breath on the

one central chain that drags their feet

through disaster and tragedy:

Reason.

Nor do they arrange words as

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I do not dream of a freedom for the morning

I plainly know of it, and it knows all.

Before the greying dawn fully evaporates,

there’s water here, and fruit from the tree,

the shadows interminable, as the falling years are leaves

swept back from some autumn memory.

And true that path will clear, bedecked by hedge and lawn,

and the sun then grows a brilliant white,

shining on...

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Those boughs that bend in the wind,

flustered, flapping, mirror a mind

crocheted, closed for solar influence

in wasted lands of blasted heath.

The droll footsteps of the flocks

come winding, paths shorn, cris-crossing.

Letters delivered through the post-box

now leaning, drunk-angled through twigs

that break as the snap of bones

through winter’s chill.

And do...

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(May 8th 2015)

That limpid, facile phrase

Purple-edged, wind-bitten, flat

Faced up for passing feet

Eight-thirty AM, outside

The drab closed bookies

This stilled scrap facsimile lies

A just resolution, barren

Torn into four

By hands fed words other than truth

Scattered as the once-flaming candle

Pinched out, dies

Now a mere token for vaguely wandering

Ha...

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Dead men drift here and there on restless tides,

washed as driftwood on a rain-decked shore.

Crows pick through the detritus, crass, craven,

and seated, the ministerial detachment surveys;

parleying with thin air, tapping stones with moccasin,

etching out the masterplan, no pretence to descend

until the paths are hollowed out, bordered, lifted

with coarse luminescence to a sil...

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Rush me off my feet and put me,

on some mute stale wasteground.

Keep several yards away and pace out

a circle around my signpost figure.

When night draws on and the first

nascent flames flicker unstable in

the near instance,

I shall know truth as you cannot.

A shadow frozen, skeletal, an endless

retreat, smeared relic of monochrome,

ever distant in the oil-washed dawn...

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I leave by front door.  Climb up, north,

beyond cardboard houses lining the route

away from the roaring city.

But, no lie, sound travels; on bridges of air,

rivers of dust, canyons delved by word and cry.

The swarming bustle echoes down centuries;

building, toil, murder, love, revolution, dying birdsong;

hate, war; the engines of humanity, channelled, set.

I walk away,...

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