#121 - in leaflight (a dance with the old bones)

1.5.20

121

leaflight

a dance with the old bones

in Groundhog Year

for Jean Kent

(towards our conversation)

look into day

go unseen – here!

Nietzsche’s hundred pockets

every mad step inspired

plenty of life

not enough lives!

plague at the gate

I have called it forever

now it comes catching the clock

I promise I won’t look

green thought, green shade

by blade and later leaf it

socks worn through

why worry?

in person with the petal

and underwing

swing by

I love a branch impeded view

keep the tree

sweep far off

in rounds

and kid ourselves a garden

(doctors will find them in us as well)

sunbright

wind to its old tricks

weather and it comes to seasons

everyone is rising here

everyone lays low

a Mr Lincoln whiff that red

look around

in air and under all about

and ask myself

where is that music (?)

day makes of me

forget the world, remember this self

here where I am at home

#120 - it is the season of little bugs

30.4.20

120

it is the season of little bugs

lots of them

swim from an itch so

numb number a self among       

the now-you-hum, no

make mist

and cone of wings risen

it is an age of

take myself about

kept to round by chore

be quick, brush off

and somewhere mapped

in skin already

see the mountains rise

that is the dreaming, bit

of elsewhere

and while you were at kip

luggage lost, missed bus

someone has followed

to blood me with hunt

clap eyes

then hands upon

sometimes they are

all the air and risk

you will breathe

warm water wash

an age of soap

indoors bug long gone

scratch kindling

gather for a fire

know smoke will

make a winter of

never noting just that moment

when the itch is gone 

#119 - living the forest

29.4.20

119

living the forest

I have a house of it

felled thing

cast incantations out          

here’s how the drought cracks

spring takes up

I work with it

I’m thing in progress

someone had arrows from here once

breathes by night

stands again

once upon this ground

my house went up

I was all hands to it   

others came, ideas full

snatches of tune and rhythm

takes rain to tank

puts on

I boarded up the forest

and still it grew around            

books into every cranny

someone said piano here

couldn’t stop guitar

all timber too

and like to leaf

wings came

pick up

sit at

you’ll flower

live upside down

won’t feel the whirl

the old footfalls

are on my way

this is the circuit round

hush, are you with me?      

I’m finding it

creep and crawl

forest is multitasking again

shine foliage and collect

inward up

comes unbidden

rolls out like machinery

had to be always sweeping

someone whispered remember the fires

someone called it a day

but it was too late for that

long, long ago by then I was

over hills

and green shoot

last of shower again  

here is my fool’s paradise

aren’t we all lovely lost to it?

hybris!

call our corner garden

bushed there with the effort

I live in the book’s paper makings  

no matter the sky is my screen

I’ll want anyway

I am the wilderness voice –

call me cello in the tree’s light

my timbre is timber            

all as must be

in sailing day

how colour catches

every creature’s climbing on

and in the tree’s light

a poem’s vast

who’ll count the cubic meters?

even in a few spare pages

still the wilds

wild branches hold

no one says

this forest

the tree

no one speaks a word

#118 - a little wrestle with myself

28.4.20

118

a little wrestle with myself

and mystery of am

bag of breath, bones

flesh and bounded

just with such ideas

skies variably over, ours

all otherworldly with this one      

bitten and bite back

that’s how it is

to be in a body

ancestors for cameo

guess a little here

place bets

we’re not even looking out at the windows

they’ll just have to nose us out

bring my wry instruments

say day

call conscience

discover the neighbours speak

piano waves and colour to splash

watch the illiterate whirl

wordlessly join in

for the effort to remember

whole nights of the raw experiment with luck

who’s down?

who’s in the limbs of tangle?

on the ropes

and here’s a hold

                                                             

brood, joy for the singing all outside

apologize

hello

neither in book not conversation

eye to eye

news from another sphere

rush to record

down for the count

in the canvas

all falling

all this for the sake of haunting

there isn’t a way through the dream

but you are

now and then a bell intrudes

of course, fake

in years long past

and here we are

to dance is all the body

otherwise up to

you have to be the listening

so silence

sometimes in the library weep

that I won’t read you all

but travel till I’m gone

#117 - with everything known we are responsible

27.4.20

117

with everything known we are responsible

think of nothing

try it!

number between zeroes

already a light shone in on

with each good grip

delight

with every day

the weather

                              

with everyone else

a will we now

signals

in every book

a fit of words

and spill the memories

long after, lest…

in every blessing

curses fall

clockswept

we’re away

with every laugh

some slapstick fall

must be at someone’s expense

in every kiss

give lip

in every inkling, attitude

in each self – the soul –

illusion of eternity

art hutch

we have come from somewhere

with every thought

some other hum

here are the leaves

to tell tree

here’s the ant for heap

a long rhyme

in all tautology

our wishes went

shook the dust from ratty tails

in every day

some doing done

and we come round again

with everyone else

a will we now

and what do you know

every heart

its hunch

each touch

a tendril turn

we world with

in every truth

all alien

pressing to attain

with every will

each chord a big noting too

all of the each-ness

otherwise us

and upside down

still see

in every ancient instinct – candle

swim in that mirror

it’s smoke

this self

all under heaven

come clouds

in time

the tap tap tap

of neither nor

worm up to the sun

and grovel

hay hum

all aloft for flight

lift, thrust and each propel

for every flag its fool

go anthem under

for a church

its stone upon stone

prison toil

with each look

how a thing is held

to be

in every tinpot coup

new resentments rise

with every blink all seen

and inwardly

each star with its stallion run

over the weather a wish

each elsewhere pill

all erstwhile

praise

each death a telling done

with each trembling

the knees

it’s business

up to tricks

hover

in all the old tunes

lovely lies

air angel apt

in deity

in breadrise

little butter bricks

with every breath signs tuneful  

brim

with ready or not

and here comes a chopper

tickle me pink

every inch of the way

with all of the others

our love