2215
7.22
22.i.26
on
foot to clear a head
by an ongoing series of
views
by moment to moment on
and being in
past rise
and all along
by way of habitation, whose?
could call it a waltz
a whirl
running around
chase where tail was
only to wonder
look up and
watch where you go
there are the bones of earth
in my bounce
there’s gravity brings us along
not another voice in sight
but keep to my own
but listen
always further from myself
by woof away
forgetting fences
learning to be far
2214
7.21
21.i.26
how
flux we
close plonk as sculpt
and visceral
to be just in the words
refer or not
can’t help
no elbows pointing out
however
(funny beast
a horn each way)
choose to
everyone better when
that’s my must
and gawk
garden of flames grown all around
onto the always next
random foster
a tinkle grief
the flourish up
keep on, won’t you?
it’s so we sign the days
2214
7.21
21.i.26
the blinking, golden and gone
ekphrastic for George Heming Mason’s 1870 ‘Staffordshire Landscape’
what stolidity, the past!
as if it were for burial
and this the sacred ground
a day of ages!
golden as long since
the close flight of the goose
the blinkers and the saddle and
none
one’s head is bent
and one forthright
one stoops
one is as an angel
to a puddle’s throw of sky
the sunblessed shepherd, wielding
crook
wispy as this light
looks out
last of the day so put to use
trees, ghosts of themselves
alight with the sun’s last
we see
craggy fells for far
not a chimney smokes
the houses silent as if emptied
for this
one end of this sky now dusk
it’s just what’s there’s a poem
I can never look far enough in
2213
7.20
20.i.26
empty hands
ekphrastic for Danila Vassilieff’s ‘Man, Woman and
Mother-in-law in the street’
a moment from duty
for a judgement we
cannot accept
I think there’s a
story here
we are a moment for
the wall
apron sag, shapeless
these expressions are
of elsewhere
what’s behind them is
a mirror
someone said shit
they don’t sink
they don’t float
it’s lucky just to be
here
2212
7.19
19.i.26
in the weather comes
Gore Cove Track Series
an all embrace
and hastening home
the kind of music
takes my hat
blows me along
leaves the ears
exposed
it’s a sort of song
it’s every tree crazy
all dancing
way up high
with a fling and a
flail
and there’s your leaf
flown
find a hollow
shelter in
we ourselves are
weather
sometimes I’ll stop
for it
or I’m passenger
bent half to this
whim
otherwise lurks
have you felt how the
stream has its breeze?
weather’s here and it’s
coming
been with us all
along
just a touch of sky
in the clamber vine
in the leaf still
spring
in the bay laid to
its tide
after the weather’s gone
of course it’s still
in the tree
and here’s a sun
beside
just to show us all
2211
7.18
18.i.26
self-esteem
a little solipsism
sometimes
jealous of myself
sometimes
take a cheap shot
full of
admiration too
I am my
own tyrant dictator king
get
ahead of
slip
behind
turn
tail in case of a rout
there
are days I clean up after
mostly
just pile
have
turned myself inside out
because
the world is upside down
sometimes
forget a self as well
I do it
for the memories
take a
deep breath
hold my
own hand
get a
grip
can you
imagine?
there’s
no need
sometimes
I’m just here for me
that’s
to reassure
2210
7.17
17.i.26
joy of the track, that it’s never the same
Gore Cove Track Series
some
days, the sideways eye to have me
sometimes
just the weather
it’s
every conversation’s an elsewhere
like
the harbour – how a sea comes in
wings
are, shall we say, arriving
frond
is to unfurl
everything
of Earth has fallen
everyone
rose up
there’s
how a creek’s come down
a
breeze presides it all
and the
rubbing – let’s call that time
we’re
abandoned here
even to
the last leaf’s light
even
far in treetop
what
creature will not ask
what
sky is up today
2209
7.16
16.i.26
yeah, right
ekphrastic for H.J. Wedge’s 1996 ‘untitled’
peer up
wide eyes
we surf the plastic
green
outstare
death is the over
paletting
what world has such a
sky?
who’d blue?
there’s fire
there’s fear
few hairs
one has been
overtaken by mouth
another still
swallowing down
there’s no telling
how you get here
2208
7.15
15.i.26
there are no days in space
there is no time beyond the world
there is no one place
no air
hours are as we must imagine
a helmet for them or a wrist
the signals come and go
one’s told
there cannot be a stillness
nor ever was
an idea has no weight
we are naked before all the gods
and have to ask
were they ever here?
even suited up, tied down
measure the armpits whiffly
if you have a window
breathe
look out
remember
it’s all the soil of flesh flies under
tubes and wires and tincan tricks
even here, the call of nature
even here, you’ll have to go
they’ll call this something else
everything has code
beyond is the untold
and this, friends, is our situation
on course to be lost to be here
2207
7.14
14.i.26
day middles out
for the Gore Cove Track Series
you could walk all
the way
between lines some
days
say breeze please
hunt down shade
just foot fallen
after foot
and where you touch a
tree
there are deeps
that’s the sky come
down
roots are sometimes a
seaserpent dive
there’s the bay
bedside
in certain falls of
bark, a sign
day middling
water dragon power
naps
turkey to kip retired
it’s all of this
picture made
middlemost
come to a stillness
so
I think the centre of
the day
they say an army can
sleep marching
each else folded in
you can see how I’m
here when I’m not
from these lines
a kookaburra startup then
the eye is a thing
just as guessed
but for the stone
still night – another
world
and someone pumps
this all around
keep a head at the
top of the heart
the setting off just
so
just waiting
for a sunshower
for a rainbow
waiting for the shade
to follow me home
waiting for a star to
fall
