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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Suggestion to believe, attempts for waking

Operating in quizzed facade, holes masking

Reality, tenants streaming, marked, restless

People too proud to sign away the crust

Almost defiant, though wind and cold dent

Order in file, pattern disrupted, hard-desked

Travel through fire to freeze in fog warped

Control can't take the heart from the flame.

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White nights,

white nights...

I'm colourblind.

Kind of like to think I know

why we stand solid,

struck dumb by perennial sadness;

and the salient points,

burst like bubbles in smoked air;

clasped to the breast

that sinks as seconds lengthen

even beyond reason for purge.

Beyond the clouds that fall,

in spirals, now thick moistened rope;

we are given base,

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Weeds snake through the cracks

cramped stilled leaves beside

clot a crusted creek.

The silt turns past a corner

reflected in a straining noon.

Branches overhanging wilt

as in idle hours the flock come

scrutinise the work made waste,

and retrieve far flung

logs and stones, whittled fare

for time now dried.

And the passenger that crushed

dried leaf in ha...

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Central Hotel - noon, sun rays

warp window table;

dust ferments,

noise erupts in waves.

Clientele fluctuate;

come, go, to, fro;

raise and drop, laugh and sigh;

fifty or more sweating, sated diners;

moving witty yarns

in widening circles.

Collection goes round.

Curt remarks

break the frisson

with a butter-knife.

Below swarming traffic

moves in stifling h...

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You once said

that there were swans on the line,

driting in from subservient shores,

arcing in a ring of pearls.

Blood orange orb deflecting now

the attention someplace else.

We sat languidly, in placid mood;

I picked a fight with silence,

let the stone drop in the shallow lake

and waited for the star to burn up

in a crumpled far horizon.

But I only heard a tr...

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