He thumbs buttons into holes,

tugs a collar to his lobes, steps into

the sleet which pings off headstones.

 

A yellow Ford picks up another fare,

follows feline peepers back to town.

The sky lets up, quiets. Bones

 

creak under the weight of darkness.

A hefty tang of gardenias lodges

in his sinus, stops a sneeze dead.

 

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She’d leave this mattress and rest

now and again, but I’d never

witnessed it; always when I called

 

she was positioned

for a quick entry; on the bedside table

there’d be a box with a white tongue

 

hanging out alongside a fat

appointment book that had my name

on every leaf. I moved in as tenant

 

when she left for Australia;

the only thing I’ve changed

is the telephone nu...

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He’s propped by three pillows

in a bed by the widow, talks to his toes

who’ve been deaf since his back

 

came off worst in an argument

with a car that didn’t stop for tea

at Joe’s café where a passer by

 

phoned for an ambulance.

He watches geese fly through fug

that blasts from chimney pots

 

hopes they’ll not get sucked into

the turbines of a Bowen which he hears

but doesn’t...

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When we come face to face

with the big-headed, long-tailed gulpers

our ears tell us we’ve come deep enough

 

but the burst boil on my arse

was what prompted me

to signal the craft that hoisted us. 

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Not now, Petula, not while your sister’s taste

is on my tongue and my loins throb

like the gum around an abscessed tooth

at the thought of her; wait

 

until the rain has washed all traces of her

from the doorstep; wait until the bedding

has thrown her through the open bays;

wait until your mother has dressed

 

and left by the back door; wait

until the copying cat has lapped its s...

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Adam Eves he calls himself,

but you’ll not be spat at

if you think it’s a pseudonym.

He’s into nudism.

 

‘Ah’, I hear you say, ‘maybe

he’s a descendant' -- but

aren’t we all? Fig leaves

will never come into fashion.

 

It’s not the best place in the world

to tap out verse on a laptop:

private or not, it’s still a beach;

sand will find its way from a to z

 

and I tell him so. ...

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An angry wave had swept the ship ashore,
then scumbags came and pilfered from the hold.
The crew, all drunk, were strewn across the deck,
but when the light of later filtered in,
the dipsos upped and went, so did the craft.
They say it never happened, a sea tale,
but I’ve a keg of rum that’ll raise the dead
and make the doubts of Thomas disappear.

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His face has changed but not his voice,

I’d recognize it anywhere:

a rowdy bar; a quiet prayer.

‘Hold on’ he’d said when carrying Joyce

through flames and smoke then through a door

he’d left in bits across the floor.

And when they hit the air outside              

it kissed their cheeks as they unhinged:

alive but more than slightly singed.

The magazines were right: they hide  

the s...

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They’re on the prowl and fire at will:

sharp shooting boys with pellet guns;

they’re tall and slim and short on brains.

 

It’s cats and dogs and window panes

that mostly give these punks a thrill:

they’re on the prowl and fire at will.

 

They have no souls; they smash and kill;

at our expense they have their fun --

destroying with their pellet guns.

 

They have no thought for people’...

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The last root of woodland
is dynamited from the ground’s grasp,
left to dry before it burns
on a nearby heap.

There’s something very wrong
about all this: a world turned
inside-out. And above the clouds
of dust and smoke

a lark sounds
the Last Post.

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When Raymond left she broke
her harp and never played again,
but her sweet voice can still be heard
while she plucks feathers from a hen
and later when she’ll pull and squeeze
the teats of Betsy’s udder. In summer
she’ll make hay, feed lambs, groom
a grey horse, then dress it in a saddle,
reins, ride it to a plot. She’ll stay
a while and talk and when
she thinks she’s told him all
she’ll touch the...

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He looks awkwardly
dressed. His necktie
seems to have been knotted
by slender hands, not a bunch
of bananas. I see him
half naked in a field, topping
turnips, as free as a fish
in the tropics. This man is wild
and beautiful. He should not
be caged
in a suit.

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‘I’d sit and watch if I were you,’ he said,
‘and learn the way it should be done and while
you’re stealing all the know-how from his head --
you must develop your own voice and style.
Don’t emulate him. Be original.
Do your own fishing and use your own rod,
remember you’re an individual --
he’s just another man; he’s not a god.
Respect him, yes; he’s helped you find your feet,
but choose a rarely ...

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He asks to speak to Madam Butterfly,

they say ‘she doesn’t sing here anymore --

she upped and left for Switzerland last May

and we don’t know if she’ll be coming home’.

He thanks them very much--hangs up the phone.

 

Science hit its stride that very year

and in the Fall she sauntered to his door.

 

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This is what he talks about, after sex:
Viaduct arches that home vagrants, blank
Eyes staring like cuckoo eggs, mouths
Gulping warmth from necks of sherry bottles.
He pales like a bandage, pulls pleasure

Through a reefer; looks at me as though 

I’m medicine. He’ll leave a fifty

On the dresser and I’ll wish that he had

Come to me without a bean. I’d have

Treated him anyways and felt as go...

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With all the knocks I’ve shouldered off

like they were butterflies, you’d think

that I was tough enough to keep dry eyes,

but when I see your bed not slept in -

three nights in a row, the rag doll

on your pillow waiting to be hugged,

the note on the dresser I’ve read and read

and still believe I’ve read it wrong --

how wrong you’d be to think I’m stone.  

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We stopped for coffee/doughnuts

at a place the bombs had missed

purposely, I suspect. A shack

 

held together by graffiti. We drank

from cups mapped with cracks.

I complained

 

about the lipstick.

‘Sarah’s’ he said, the man wrapped

in stains, ‘stopped a sniper’s slug’.

 

My mind went back

to when my Maura bought it.

It was a year

 

before I packed

her last bits--dropped...

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Eluned stands alone beneath the clock,

A crimson petal topples from her breast

And lands beside a tear upon the deck;

The ghost she loves has failed to manifest.

A cabbie drops her off at her retreat

Where she’ll be greeted by a single bed,

A manuscript typeset with his conceit --

Conjured from the proofs inside her head.

Inside his cell he’s mad because he’s lost

His set-free date an...

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You were saying, dear uncle,
when the doorbell rang?
Ah, yes. I wish you’d pay your bills
on time. Getting back:
the men who worked
behind those padlocked gates
we walked past yesterday
are mostly dead. Only the then
young apprentices who still hear
the thunder of the presses
as they walk past the rust-toothed
mouth can see the old heads drip
sweat and blood across the yard
as they run from flames and...

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Miles, how long had you lived
in the woods? It seems like
forever, dear Harris. These city lights
outdo the meteor showers that rained
towards my heather bed on summer
nights while bullfrogs joked about

my nakedness. I’d read these names
in tired text by the flickering light
of log-fires, but this is something else!
And oh, how I was mislead
by the books I read; there he is...

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This garden is alive with souls; my
grandfather planted these rose trees.
My father built the greenhouses,
pulled the first tomato, cucumber,
grape. The apple tree was here
before them all. How many before
me have plucked at these boughs?
It’s not clear who dug the trenches,
turned bricks and mortar into walls
because some pages are badly blotted.
I see skulls bob up and down
as huntsmen pass by...

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…………………..Rather than spit it out

…………….he writes it down and hands it

………to some Richard Burton type

who doesn’t have the crackle

………of a congested chest

.....................but breath enough

………………….for long sentences

and thus

we hear of days

disguised as nights

on coalfaces and in

hard headings

where silicosis

is the price

of bread.

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…………….My name is Harris. I’m an alcoholic

…………..….horse. I’ve taken bribes to feed

………………..my habit: thrown more races

…………………..than a hundred town-hall clocks

…………………………..…have faces.

…………….I’d lost my self respect,

……………...and out of sheer neglect: my job;

………………..my stable. And when I thought

…….………….…I might as well be dead

…………………………..…and almost

…………….brought death on myself, a...

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Renowned for her cruel lashes

she comes in on a soft breath,

…..dry as a nun’s breast.

…..I never thought I’d

…..have to

…..hose the rose trees

…..until summer when my pen

…..will laze in its well

like a hooker

against a lamppost.

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              This is not my country

    of origin, but it has adopted me

and I have adapted to its ways,

             its tongue, its eating habits.

    Thirty years is a long time

to go without Yorkshire pudding;

             a kiss from a cotton-mill lass;

    a chat with a sharp-tongued tinker.

But I keep this all under my cap,

    out of fear more than out of

             resp...

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He’s at the age where he’s into girls,

and I mean into. Poor things

will push prams while still

in pigtails. He was good

at football, too. I hope he grows

back to it. 

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A trawler hits a reef, gives back the fish;

the salts swim to the safety of a beach,

and lunch on coconuts, bananas, figs.

When night drops in for supper they light fires,

cook a hog who’d ran into a hole they’d dug --

                       and out of luck.

They sleep and dream of cucumbers, grapes,

and other crap they’ll have to go without.

Then dawn shows up and with her: a rescue ...

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