How to write a long poem -- Post #2 -- Newcastle Prize Poems over the last thirty years

 

These are poems of mine that shortlisted, placed or won the Newcastle Poetry Prize, over the last thirty years

 

Many of these poems have been revised since they were first published in the Newcastle Poetry Prize anthologies, but it has been my aim here to publish them in their original form. They are not necessarily all in chronological order.

The file from which this is pasted is 100 A4 pages, so don't be surprised if it takes a while to make your way through it. 

Dombóvár

 

Megbűnhődtemár e nép

Amúltat s jövendöt!

            – Kölcsey Ferenc

 

1

stone tulips, all teeth

 

pretty town of narrow hearts

 

its sturdy fence

 

this is not the train but

a train runs through

 

I remember before myself

there’s no one else to

 

make it a duty now

 

 

 

2

I like to be nowhere –

as far as can be

 

it’s where I’m from, I am

 

field and breeze, the lean of the land

 

I don’t know them

they don’t know me

 

comfortable to be nobody too

 

ruins now where they were taken

 

of course there’s a fierceness

could still call belief

 

must remember for the gone

 

no one here now has a debt

 

 

 

 

 

3

ghost dog, ghost cat – which is why

 

on brush cutter two stroke day

 

the id-pack would run, all jaw

best friends, and tear round yappy

 

all but for the fence, lovely, trained to defend

 

sit Puli! Hajna stay! drop it!

 

are simple as children

they like their prey processed

 

gave me a name and I lost it here

 

good fences make best dogs most angry

 

 

 

4

all across the Great Plains

 

on Trabant Saturday, in a diesel puff

 

our factories shut, heroes abandoned

 

you go back to look for the good old days

 

to imagine the coaches,

cauldron and the axe, religion

 

this is the land of forgive ourselves

for all we’ve done, will do

 

 

 

5

when one, unseen, goes off in your ear

jump skin

 

teeth so shine

that really they are barking for each other

 

a dog for my fence so I’ll need one

 

we could be hounded out with pitchforks

installed as courtiers

 

a fence to show they know

 

so loyal, all must bark 

 

 

 

6

to see which side they’re buttered on

each keeps yard tidily

 

will always vote for the king, whomever

 

we were the ones must have run

 

ever since in disguise

 

you won’t see me, I don’t recognize

 

 

 

7

egészségedre – here’s your health!

 

little dance with all paws

then who’ll command the tune?

 

it’s how one man makes a whole country

 

less violins than were

 

of course the narrowness had to be there

 

if just once they could go for a walk

they’d be less lonely then

 

 

 

8

‘haven’t we already suffered?’

 

and for all the sins we could yet commit

 

after the rains, there’s silt you’d sink in

 

so much was forest before

 

now it’s happy hour for mosquitoes

they bite through time

hook up with lice and with bedbugs

 

 

 

9

glum cats go

slink, furtive

 

perhaps they are our silence?

 

spectres glimpsed in the crossing

 

or ‘here comes conscience’

one might say

 

 

 

10

he doesn’t quite invent himself

though would like you to think, a kind of saviour

 

the gossip breeds

things have gone too far

 

then the future is like that view you get

from the end of the train when the tracks run away

into the yellow

it was a tunnel then

 

 

 

11

can hear the shouting from next door

some kind of crisis, little seas boil, here’s an admiral’s cap

 

sturdy street, all bark as a stranger goes by

 

see him look down from the top of the tree

 

defends the bitter loss

 

says cut down the tree and then you’ll be warmer

not mine of course, he means

 

he gathers in the tithes – ours, yours

for family, for friends across the frontier

so many!  and yet these many are few

 

to speak in a riddle of time

 

there’s a little town in his head

it’s becoming a village

 

 

 

12

they sing, who’ll see?

 

some blue, red poppies ragged in weed field

 

rooster and cuckoo all summer green,

soil quicksand too

 

here is my father’s pet fox

 

you could walk into the corn just sown

 

the barking spoils it all

 

 

 

13

if only it were clockwork, could make good then

 

every hundred years, expelled

 

these have cultivated a nervous quiet

but you do know they might squeal

 

have you ever trusted?

 

lick their young well

 

scruff them when stiff necked 

and some grow alley tough

 

and some –

if there’s cream they’ll get it

 

 

 

14

no one’s allowed to chase a car

 

some have eaten through the wire

to take down a bicycle too

 

 

 

15

soon we’ll burn witches again

 

we’ll be savage, we’ll have just arrived

 

this one blows with,  knows his market         

 

 

 

16

lest bite the hand that feeds

 

the good must accept their fate, face fact

 

jump Viktor, down Otto, Vlodomir beg

 

think paper, slipper, pipe, smell fear

 

haul to the park and home!

 

 

 

17

one may shit on one’s own lawn

lay the bottles where you will

that’s just superstition

 

obedient to the old borders

though worshipful, still real

 

down Árpád, roll over Attila

 

we know who is who

 

 

 

18

a whistlestop name too long, too fast

 

water birds, ivy up walls

rye stubble, hills to roll away

 

the village clouds, and the church run still

 

so many chimney whispers

 

 

 

19

who ever deserved a country ?

 

when the paint shines, here’s realm was

the buried cross bent top of the crown

 

 

 

20

a little gargle in the morning

throats sore from so much

 

some have held high office

I think in the case of Caligula

or that might have been a horse

 

who else can have erected these fences?

 

 

 

21

hold court from a kennel

 

come out to bark

 

but they can be bribed with biscuits

will each leap for a treat

 

 

 

22

one kingdom just against all comers

 

here where the Romans camped

 

one size fits all there is to revenge

 

tails wag as I get around

we’re nowhere     who’ll notice? who could care?

 

I lean over the gate, blade sharp as their bite

I slit their barking throats

 

 

 

23

meadows and the summer shade

insects known by name

 

it’s better to leave no tracks at all

 

to be small in a small place no one remembers

 

to be as good as gone

 

BUKOVINA

 

a little star still falling

even as we speak

 

 

 

night train to Vatra Dornei

 

so much of it is village dimly

coup upon coup

cropping through flat lands

 

hear only the speech of steel wheels

track clatter and rattle, all to the north

 

towers of old smoke until the mountains come

 

passing away like a country, the night

the place that was before 

 

in through an open window, it is a headlong thing

 

the Romans laid these Dacia lines

this must be the thousand year train

 

undoze for first light

that’s how long we’ve been

 

fine cloud, coarse

barns to fill, hummocks ring  

 

peach, birch, pine

 

a mess of wires, cranes, river runs

all the industrial trackside leavings

 

and from some windows

clothes hung to freeze

 

churchyards full of the gone

old car wrecks cast to the sidings

 

the stolid station master with the flag

now all the flush tints come

 

mist yet here there too

 

the valley opening, opening

sometimes whole farms dance

 

the green all greener than the hill is high

 

fences and tracks leading where

 

tin tile timber roof

crosses all round

 

old walls and yellow wells

the road itself runs by

 

snow pockets the furthest view

 

 

I love a fence falling

 

gone off its way

 

left languish, nor by wire now touched

 

perhaps its others are taken for smoke

scratches of pencil on paper

 

perhaps sunk far in time                                   

 

just a post stood

where the rust once fell

 

sculpt first

some rings of a tree

for a while

 

can you call it such?

 

it’s for the ants to carry away

it’s for the worm

 

pure as rot

 

in the end

this map in the head is lost

 

and still such a place

will be somebody’s home

 

this too is a sort of soil

 

all that we touch

poem at Câmplung

 

even in the snow, our leavings

 

once fruit fell at our feet

 

an axe through the head of the forest

a cross saw, the body in half

 

that was us and is

 

the winecart comes

a moment’s joy

 

ladder – timber as clouds are

 

the lowing fields of dung

 

all our own work

 

he and he – all that was done

 

and she, like a shame indoors

ladling smoke, sadly gone

 

we make our iron tracks through the green

bare limbs, call ourselves winter

 

the house is a head

it won’t matter

how fast, how slow

 

who has sense would tremble

 

cuckoo

bit of a cuckoo high in the hills

 

just one note short of the koel

but this one invented the clock

 

we all repeat the childhood against us

 

we were never on time

how can we agree?

 

you can’t argue with the cuckoo

 

unlike the woodpecker

it vanishes without a sign

 

I wouldn’t call it singing, would you?

 

though, like your parents, it remains to scold

just a bit further off

a now-and-then hesitation perhaps, for emphasis

 

it won’t let up

not a pause in which to reply

 

you have the boots and the heart for this

you have to climb higher is all

 

 

 

they decided to dig up the whole town

 

someone must have been elected, appointed

had to have thought of it

 

roads and pavements, sewer mains, all the supplies

every street, the roads out of town

 

graveyards! the dead went free…

many of them joined in digging

 

no one could remember what they were looking for

there was a kind of stubbornness

characteristic, some might have said

 

hi-vis vests and ten o-clock shadows

they dig as they shout as they

have their own language for this

 

they dig in the shade, dig in the sun

 

how the machinery roars!

rusting down through generations

 

so that was how it went

 

when they finished with the town

they started digging up mountains

they had to take out the forest first

 

soon they will start on the sky

 

the bells are still ringing

 

the bells are ringing

they won’t ever stop

 

not everyone believes yet

not everyone attends

 

these are the bells were sent to save us

 

dogs go berserk, driven mad by

 

bells go on regardless

so loud! no one’s ever heard themselves think

 

a bird in the bell must be brief, no nesting

 

here’s a kind of universal tinnitus

heathens beware!

 

many have wished on them

or called a curse and hallowed be

 

some say it’s a Sunday thing

but the bells are everywhere

 

for sanctification, bells ring themselves silly

there can be no argument with bells

 

a kind of joy to bend the neck

to make obeisance

 

a king inclines to ring them too

 

all night the bells toll out, bats flee

vampires do their dark

 

bells drown all the singing

what muezzin could survive?

 

bells are tolling up crusade

bells ring for an auto da fé

and for thee

 

a wedding, a baptism, funeral, crowning

the destiny of dynasties

all these things are to unravel

the bells have spelled disgrace

 

even carillon

was never quite what you’d call a tune

 

bells are well before time, they are after

 

someone has to have been swinging from the rope

 

and like the cuckoo in the clock

they make the world machine

 

should they ever stop

and I know they won’t

those bells would still be in my ears

 

who forged them?

and who hung them where

all the town would have to hear?

 

these are things must not be asked

 

where is the well known dragonfly?

but fast asleep elsewhere

 

peasants on a train

 

go west

and past the rapeseed fields, fresh ploughed

 

have the smell of work that can’t be finished

 

there is this cloud of a hilltop passed

always the sun in the eyes

 

little smoke machines

out on the road

they go the other way

to a future

 

and these less-than-washed

tender they are for their own

 

they are building an extra storey on the old farmhouse

and maybe one higher after that

 

stork on the nest like a statue of height

it all depends on the neighbours

 

this Christ on the cross is theirs

 

 

 

untitled

 

just as dollars so a roof

so the shirt on my back

 

thus I put up a store

could call it antsworth

a squirreling

 

and lifework

all these little proofs against time

the tussle with urges

 

lay down in the sun and the snow

nothing there that bites but sleep

 

be eaten next spring

in the first thaw

fresh as the day you were born

  

 

A Letter to the Judges

 

ONE

You won't believe this. Or maybe you will. Or grudgingly. Whatever.

It's not my job to make you happy. I've spread myself too thin already.

 

I do think you should entertain it though, in all conscience, at least for

the sake of entertainment. You won't get rid of me without odd pangs.

 

I'm going to write this next year too. Only you won't read it then. Unless

it gets in. It probably won't. Whose loss? Some people buy scratchies.

 

You have to admire the cussed persistence of the poem, to have itself

rewritten every year like this. And here's a poet, has to be, trompe l'oeil,

 

as it were, avowing this will be done for as long as it takes. I will will it

to my offspring, even unto the seventh son/daughter, of the seventh, and so on.

 

(How can you know I haven't inherited it myself?... Isn't it as if we were

always here, me with these lines endlessly shaped, you with this silly dare?)

 

Let it be recorded in whichever heaven you like, I have a poem to smoke

to the ancestors, to raise beaker with, take pills for, be bound to that juggernaut

 

revision, until it's past the post and placed, and/or more likely, also ran.

 

O weep but a little for this dross,

I won't be cross.

 

Platonist improvisation. Mirror faceted, and ask, which poem is the original (?)

 

It is a series of tests I have set. If you kill it now, can it ever improve?

The reflex poem. Covid conditions persist. The knee-jerk reaction, precautions.

 

One future of democracy is in these shaking hands. Your mission

should you choose to accept it, (and my mission too) to fall

like sunlight merely, over the object of interest.

 

 

 

TWO

That's the first strophe in the bag. Too easy, as they say.

I suppose I should have started with a 'Dear somebody-or-other, …'

Too late now. Here's poetaster lowering tone again.

 

Like dog's balls or an intentional fallacy. Licked either way. A little one-

sided as conversation goes; a letter is a kind of ode, if you have a think.

But then two poems might meet discreetly. (It happens all the time.

 

Where do you think poems come from?) And as with much romance,

it's hard to see why it's not prose; sometimes you just have to have faith.

'Believe me.' (That was Fats Waller.) I write from the heart. The head itself

 

cannot make poetry, however handy. And yet the head is top

of the tree. And coconut too. Want a wrestle? Howsabout

hide-n-seek, a board game? Or let's canoe? Come out of hiding.

 

You know this voice, don't you? Don't you know all the voices?

Or you want it to be a stranger? You want to be a stranger yourself?

Prosopopoeia! Fresh joy in masks and unmasking. Lavish of throwing voice. 

 

Being thrown by it. And double dare ya. You can just stop reading. Wipe.

Kill this thing off now. There isn't a duty to go on. Only 800 entries to go.

 

 

 

STROPHE THE THIRD

Still here? I hear a stifled moan. Wotsup? Is that pain or approbation?

 

There is a time limit for the writing of the letter. Not imposed

by rigid fear, but product of anxiety. We too, you see, have rules,

of a sort. You only go at it when you want. So it has to be

the honest truth. Many of us are at work in this way. It is a baring

of life and limb to all the colour we can muster. There are numbers

on the backs of our cards. CVC – what's this? But we know now.

We hammer the tongs, by tooth and nail, as hoist to own petard.

 

 

 

Never learn our lesson. (We're paying, so why not bunch the titles up?)

YES, NATURE... it is a highly allusive system, everything connects.

Rhizomatically is cool.  Prayer’s a filibuster.

 

Based on observation – valley shaped to sun, little wonder of a cloud,

but now the moon must mist. See cattle, hear the fark fark crows.

I like to gather in the wood then. Stack branches. All these tasks to laud.

 

In the vizier's garden, a dry sierra. That orchard trickle of the past is dust.

 

All through the sun, and the billowing sails

fish in the net flap silver, gold.

 

The last two centuries? Who needs 'em? Be sublime.

 

Say ‘delicate’ – you’ve done your dash. Make twee. With dappled dulcet zeal.

Might as well have ‘cerulean’, ‘petrichor’ – ‘effulgent’.

 

Shockers! Yet gong to smartypants won’t go.

By the time you read this though, the wicked Tories may be done.

 

 

 

SQUEAL NOW (Mainly it’s the sins of the fathers.)

Or something more evocative. There has to be urban grit

in the works. His slutty face, her leer. And the bodies later

 

with whom cause shall not attribute. Detective poem?

The future grammar is imagined. Can't be a pretty sight;

 

not for us in our nowadays nighties. We've forgotten years.

Just as the ideal map exceeds territory in scope,

 

the poem can never be more than a plan of/for itself.

And of its time, and limits, telling – living work.

 

Rhetorical knockout punch somewhere round here.

Lines to ring forever, like pennies in a till.

 

 

 

STROPHE THE NEXT

Is it a journey?  (Yes, we're working through a list.)

Could be a walk across the empty city. The Hill or Cook's Hill.

Let's not give too much away. Say Merewether Baths to Nobby's,

few lattes, swim, bit of a chat, best part of a day. Our ocean was allowed.

Why do people live anywhere else? (A: So we might pity them.)

And industry's out there, still queuing on the horizon.

Coal! The future's going to be the past. They're breathing this

in India now (And some must breathe their last)  … No,

it's too ponderous to tell. Which centre cannot hold?

 

Parts of the poem should seem still like draft...

 

rhymes buried and long rhymes too, this could be dictation,

automatic writing, the epistolary italic, aliens in the anthology

 

(and just as suddenly, the punctuation's back, if erratic though).

Effort of months/of years to seem dashed off as if last minute,

to a deadline … True pride of craft self-deprecates. 

 

Struggle to strike right note. Somewhere between Dryden and Pope.

Balmain needs harrowing again. Glad to have got that out of the way.

 

 

 

 

Refrain ?

Yes, praps you wish I had. So pencil in some indignation.

I write out of moral responsibility. Witness all kinds of vanishing.

 

Economy, for instance. It's the war on the world I don't get. And on the trees!

It’s every lie was white once. Are there Nazis in Ukraine? Yes, and in Moscow too.

Nazis are everywhere. Here, try this spray. It’s good beyond the grave.

 

 

 

NEXT SECTION BAROQUE (with ‘Ventilator Blues’)

The noun phrase, like expanded territory – a season end to it.

The poem is concertina; every world is filed somewhere. Spuds under ‘P’.

There's 'handle' – that's 'off which to fly'. Want pandering, do you?

 

Another artform or narrative of voyage, this day containing all others before.

 

We're somebody else's exoplanet. Suck that up, you fool. Un-pun!

 

 

 

CONFIDE AND THREATEN  (in Dale Carnegie's sinister cypher)

I know about... the accident (so-called) and the letter (dodgy hand),

the deleted messages… Who do you think you are and what gives you

the right? Is there such a thing as a safe secret? Ah, but there's nothing that

must really spill. Destiny is in your hands if we can agree to terms.

 

 

 

APOLOGIA

Forgive this last outburst. Of course I accept your what-shall-we-say (?)

unreservedly unconditionally anonymously, etceterally.

 

Or are we just a little superstitious, game to leave this out?

Shortlist's the only way to know. Good oil that you can trust.

 

You'd think a letter had a middle; this simply isn't true.

There's a moment though you know you're well past. Symmetry

must be defied. Belly ache or belly laugh? Even if

you should decide you wouldn't be able to tell.

 

 

 

EPIGRAMMATIC

Go to bed and the day's still in us.

 

So many are birds, those of the air –

there must be a trick to it.

 

In little wildernesses of the missive,

where grief outpours the heart to live –

ask, would women ever love (?). Did men?

 

Obscurity – the dark will choose us.

 

In trouble for being cheerful again?

Don’t get into the Bible that way.

 

 

 

IN AUTOBIOGRAPHIC MODE

The poet with the specimen box collecting wilds of her own mind,

just to be generic. It's like  the idiot in the story and just don't get it

about cliques and bubble ambition, vanity of human wishes, the poetry

compulsion – clinical variety. Once friend of mine tried to stop – poet I mean –

churns out the good stuff. Was so sickened by how it all goes; thought what's

the point (?). Made a month on the poetry waggon and then began to feel

physically ill from not making. Realized poetry's something you do

for the sake of a little lie down. Have to give yourself the guernsey.

 

It's like managing sex urges of the upper primates. Will not be done remotely,

but we lure them in. There are about five hundred in this country – seriously

afflicted. How contagious? It's hard to say. Never seems to catch on. Next.

Shake my hand and double your dole. (Limited period offer). That was Hawaii Smoko

of the eleven million hectares. Has to be dated for a footnote later. Then there

were the floods. And go again. A catalogue of lies. What’s carbon footprint of a war?

All oil. One in five deaths worldwide now are smog, did you know?  Seven mill. Play market

yo-yo. Blow up a sacred site. Have another? Here’s old growth. The koalas and me still.

 

 

 

Do lives matter? ANTISTROPHE around about here.

It could simply be a question of losing count. And yet the poet

keeps toting up lines! As if they were Noble Numbers. You bet!

 

Lip twitch of herpes or an itchy arse. The hip that tells of autumn,

as ants of rain. Once the ache gets in, like rats in the rafters, hell to be rid of.

 

You ask after my health? That’s kind. Might be form

or you're just trying to be funny. The ringing in the ears won't stop.

 

One could grizzle one's tits off in a letter like this

and where would that get us? Torn between two genres, more,

 

feeling like our work's to get thing all measured.

How many tracks can the poem run on? You tell me.

 

You can do it in the speech. No one'll mind much and here I am

getting a tedious job out of the way for you. How many poems

 

are as helpful as this? How can you think I'm not owed?

Poetry's grim reaper too. Or else – your time will come!

 

It's the thing you think won't fit that makes it,

sets the whole thing snug.

 

 

 

EPODE

Swear out an affidavit that all the words are mine. Because

anyone could have written this. I'll see you in the O.E.D.

That's what you have to bear in mind. How can we believe

though? Committing words to paper as such, can't be sure

that I'm alive. I could be wraith here for appearance… Dark vanishing,

fully Victorian; if it wasn't for the breathy patches... Pinch and Tickle.

(Solicitors.) Two hundred lines is a fair whack of frame.

 

The forms defy coherence. I become a school.

And swim for it. Sunlight's for the treetops now.

 

Assume there must be an ending somewhere though possibly in media res.

Hard to catch a coda when you've swallowed your own tail.

(Great garbage patch now in the fish. Look just like single-use soy.)

 

Nietszche, when he was most mad, then wished to be understood.

A few of us have got this, like we're where light lasts. You could make

your way by just a dim poet once. Too much photopollution now. Things

were twiddly in the ancient days, now they call that steampunk. Sigh.

And LOL, he he. Notice planets line up of late – let's take that for a sign.

 

Who's the one nearest and next? Head of an ox or a cow? Chicken's feet?

Yours faithfully and with regards. And here for my last wishes – the pizza,

coke (full strength) and cigarettes as back in the day. (Turns out the filters

are worse for you!) Life always had to end, we knew. What a privilege

being is/was. A fearful thing one might butt up against the 200^th line.

IMHO, it's where we are today. Is the election over yet?

 

You don't need to be a prophet to know

that when this cinder Earth goes out,

every phrase will be long forgotten.

Whatever wrongs remain to right,     

however much better we all and it might be;

so long lives this? So long! One shuns formality,

and yet I am sincerely yours.

So say a fond hooray.

 

 

ataraxia

 

1

in a clearing, just of hours

the one patch hoped for, blue

we go round with a see-through moon

you go with me in a fold map mulched through

the place is water, spirit pointed in clouds

everything stands up from that

truth dips and perches

years fallow to it

there's landing in reflections

at times a stillness rounds

 

2

valley in the lines to spare

first to mud

then with the gloves, down where time is

nudge adjusting, mote in beam

eyes shielded, blade in hand it rings

one round chipping, one just squiz

with clippers then by gumboot

 

3

from tuck of creek, sun

climbs out of thicket

patched with weft, to loose limbed ramble,

you go with me by accidents, as if

play of scale confounds

a tendril rise calligraphy

tangle of only up

 

 

4

 look in

flower, vine lift heads

let lines run to a tune

glance sideways for the edgewise

having once brushed, join the dots

or else it's automatically

conjure for presence a thing half tended

like Mercator's firmament

it's all backyard – tilled, wilted with

what's missing, called as such

5 come into summer

then slash and let it range until the haircut

do always easiest first, go once round blank

thought resistant... nothing to see if you don't look

for headlines, how the kettle calls

we who are deaf to doubt come wonder

fallen through autumn leads on to this

make tracks so you'll have been before

 

6

roofs are for falling, take your time

the way the twig bends to the breeze

all the definite articles – strange signs

as if I were foreshadowed

the place my pudding unexhausted

knock three times it's yours

all touched and hushed – just leave it

 

 

7

even and if not myself

no harm in tending one of those things

you get good at by doing

in the barrow's hands always waiting to hold

destiny bright because it stutters, wants the phrase

it's hard to tell ruins from what's on the way

when we're the fauna in the window

in eyes most meaning – let's go there

amid the green, if stood like stars

in deaths of trees for distance

eternity where we are guessed

nor either is that centre

frogs who come from nothing

are singing just to be

 

 

8

this is the place by heart

let things themselves add up

with each round slower, day revolves

wonder of nothing just to be still

sit for the country, landscape dissolves

fences soak into the soil

never saw the big sea coming, never knew the wind

real marvels are all sober waking, everyone knows that

 

 

9

more of it letting than dwelt upon

meaning in which to persist

one has to believe in what can be done

day by day till it goes unnoticed so

you won't tell it's time

for everything as it comes grown in

like blade and fire gone to ground

I live in the land imagined

ceremony just goes on

we're sorry and we're glad we're here

constant in kindred, breath of

world else surplus to our now

 

 

10

in shoes and socks

the quiet noting, wise to do

or barefoot, have a mind to the breeze

cloud cone of insects – sparks eddy

a forest of rain by stages fallen

there's this someone who wants to kiss me thing

see olive drab, see mulberry tussling

adversity of tractor swipe

at possum's ladder up to night

where possum is long gone

 

 

11

see how rain is held to the tip

brushed with that light

and wet dog shake of it

the pick-up round, twigs sticks for fire

and little logs from happenstance

tempted to burn one's seat

(so mark winter's middle)

notice the coming-through-the-fence

in what's to burn the swamphens pile

instinctively for

things spring where they had to be

so quicken build from edges in

till the view's all furniture

ducks won't know what pond I am

 

 

12

then somewhere in the afternoon

you bump into the sun, excuse me

it's that way golden, pumpkins patched

clock winding down has whispers yet

one must admit it lights a way

in whim a chase around

prank passing into memory

and not our own so vanish

 

 

13

till you ferment

you'll see tail if

trickling top of the hat for a start

heard upstairs like typewriter keys

it's as if one had slipped under the wire

stayed this long while so that a voice took on

I'm so slight it all grows round

some turn to ache and others itch

here I am in flesh

 

 

14

one round to tug and then to tend

with hat, for zephyr treetops

arrange the work as to be solved

set about at a certain stage

you're armpits up in

privilege of the day

music concocted air and breath

of all the energy that ever was

that's how we see into beyond

art of everything breaks faith

to bring by the beautiful brink

and with it sink and swim

 

 

15

step out to the plan

be in the ever after

there's one more time around for luck

day lifts to mist, grass fades to fern

thud paws – call this the argument

five kinds of bird change tree

in the warmth of long since fires

nothing thing-at-a-time

 

 

 

 

16

our fault we let the light grow out

I won't remember here

none sweeter than of your own grown tree

a place like this is somewhere

 

 

17

and sometimes in it forget who to be

whiff of the way till there

when you can't sleep it's with you

how is there an end at all

when the last moment's yours to inhabit?

(wings, wheels and welcome! Christmases!)

we're the one more truth to tell

it is good to have met in this place

 

 

18

morning then, where day's to do

something heavy duty has had snout at by shed

who's not against me's here recalled

let's take them standing in their sap

or when did the unseen arrive?

and how will we be smoke?

dew set in a shaft to catch

chatter piles on like leaves then

bush lemon high, and you reach in

under these diacritics

turn book upside down and see

the moon's touch taken for cloud

this sky's many fronded

get a wash for free

 

 

19

proud to have grown a bit of forest

in time that was quite spare

country welcomes where we have been

and eaten alive

indoors ants think rain who'll argue?

illusions amount to civilization

 

 

20

one way and another

all who were dreamt plead to

just this glimpse the all-we-have

you feel like living forever

where we go out in the garden

 

 

to the picnic of bears, a leg-up

 

 

in treetops of winter snow has been said

 

1   andante

 

 rumble of a long way off         lush of steam      glimpse in old falls

  prints  close nose     from the fold      see them come worship the honey         

   it is gold gathered from light     sweet if life is     their substance   

    they sing it             why are they gathering here in the forest?

 

each cloud the once witnessed      as sun caught again            picture    

              head stuck in the honey pot     the whole tribe fell in   

 

bears trip paronomastical      voices of fresh air to carry the valley

       in a distance of barking          bones of the tree left longing burn

stars still stand in those branches      

 

why are they come?     say some strange brew 

 

 

 

 

2   presto

 

            nameless like the birds          smell them         mountains away    

  know them by skelter         bears are all breakfast           whom lunch beckons      

            bears heed the dinner bell          first sitting, second and supper

 

         agog with grog the chained bear dreams great strides, scat like string

a huff, a groan    following gingerbread    starlight      a mumble of song

        and reaching a certain age a bear takes the garden and weather indoors

 

even frumpy tusk bears of the bottom line       line up for cuddles

       go down to the river for snog       smack on the tail for bad bears is best!

 

 

 

 

 

3   allegretto

 

I know a wild time when bears blow up banks         and gather by meadow

      in sedge to give thanks          'allo 'allo tap shoulder        catch them unawares –

      such pranks are idyllic disports among            wise bear drinks from a running tap

milky bears hang hound and taunt      'get thee behind me spree'

         they say, remembering bear of the dog in the morning

 

the bottoms reminding us of abuse – o ragged teddy much misused

 

round as the moon and pale, as sinister notes stave in the ribs       in a bear garden

where teddies (royal-warded) park       tonight's their mardi gras       gadabout spank

 

beneath the trees where nobody sees           who can afford to be good?

 

 

 

 

4   allargando

 

                  surely they are one to a purpose?    Biffo and Tottles, Old Ben, gentle Paddington

all athrall truffle porridge         hinting for clues          a bear is whittling wolf bones   

whistling the while     and this is for the wedding of teddies      supernal as seldom they are           

love oat cakes        pinch of salt        a dram             and deep fry set to sea

beer going bears know to surprise cook with a headlock     and bear away the cheese           

 

    so they come to the bordeom of joy            in these paws up for it            moan and roar 

but we can't hear      the rollicking bears         of hills away hayrick        and cows come home 

 

here's climb-a-spire Bruin – extensible lips     tongue smooth     five toed

fat for burning and pomatum     sinews twine    unguent well known 

 

bears of a fossil were once collosal     they pun to pass the time of day      

being of eternity and assonant sibilant soft           their bluffs have bounce

 

such muscle men father tribes          win at the wheel          drive rollses        

like men  need milking          or there's the grizzle          gall and bite

 

in bauch ice     belly along     a scraggle steam hulk      dismayed of the gale

the dam bear smeared       a landscape smudge      blood in arrears

 

here's a tantrum of bears returning from sport         exit pursued

       to a little copse       where they amuse a Russian in a pit

a baton tip lick to the lip         don't call them tunes         they'll quibble

 

 

 

 

                                                           

5   rallentando

 

               bears a-maying are all pole     blunt ended     distract

 

         now afternoon light returns in the morning

they hang ripe from gnarled limbs      shine bright       see by their button noses

 

the care and circumstance in all their moves      for a penny in

well we may say your bear is after the Christmas pud threepence

 

– the cage still in mind        a travelling troupe in the endless war

style of Mother Courage       tumbrels never favoured            but far far better

than a bear generally does     the loves of a bears as yours or mine       if you prick him

 

the isthmus once up an army across      tattered rapscallionate hullabaloo         

your namedropping ursine pair came with Noah        the bears expelled before them

then primal elders        on we go            bears were there

before we were thought of          bile guinea a quart         for drama quaff

 

 

 

 

6   affretando

 

so!    firebrand bear     tanuki spooky     incendiary       podium and shoulder borne

proud as in a banner flown             that's how many bears           barbequed

and loin rib sir              cannibal bears  and airborne         ah the flying bears!

in berets flowing      breeze in the beard       true doctor       so save this one soul

 

Bobo or Basil or Humphrey B, Smokey, Yogi so Boo Boo    each sacred to the memory

a monkey's torment – bear for an uncle      auntie's unknown still sainted

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7   alla marcia

 

you see a big bear tremble for truffles     make that mind's eye a mountain marauder

your skull and crossbones bear    in a class quiz knowing it all     one of the explorers by heart

 

battling the brimstone        bears of the hereafter to our bosom heave

we are one       sword to trench blood          let brothers drink       we all salute

 

billiards in the smoking room        moustaches of another age       of port to follow claret

then were single malts            theirs the riddle of the pudding filched

                                                                                                                                                                     bears who care  just stretch and be darling      hearts are on their sleeve

 

 

 

 

8   prestissimo

 

here's the market last four years running and running and      after the marzipan dash

good bears clean their teeth        floss and dust beneath their winks      wipe front to back

 

up to thirty miles an hour     rascally bears careless of spelling  do mental arithmetic   so know

 

build it and the bears will come            they are the secret weapon

 

 

 

 

9   allargando

 

they have followed the arrows to the magic door (won't suspect a thing)

Glitter and Care and Gummy     crocodiles snap bargain bears up –  it's hard to know where to sleep       

 

and who?   and what?    and where?    why?   how?           

         as wept within       the bear        is worried pelt               history is hunted 

 

your everybear cenotaph       all pious paws       the nutstore laid         the berries –

they're for remembrance      these are the bears of a prayer             bears set fire and forget

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10   largo

 

to dream all of winter          have the hearth to fill your head       a chamber in the snow 

       they fight the lyre      smoke's out their ears       knock on the stone

               forgetting         sink deeper            old man in the fur coat

 

some say no name        honeyeater        wolf sat up meaning harm 

Lord of the Wilds and natural cunning      dedicated to Diana and object of the chase

naked palms demanding dinner      Order Carnivora      on spring pilgrimage the half ton brute    

 

sacred to themselves they are      and all in bed it's nice and warm     o do please do come in

 

 

 

 

 

11   allegro

 

     bears wear helmets      bears touchdown     bears agree to terms

how do they stack up?        who's signing this season?       all of this indoors

 

            less sentimental of the tribe clerk articles in chambers

clap you in irons as soon as sigh     warrant a swoon half masted, clout

    comes with a clip on the ear           clairvoyant bears see this

 

    will o the wisp     sun sententious      bake peroxide bears of the board

           and mull, wag shag      from the Land of Punt      make slow the coast         

kaleidoscope      and coloured ball       healthy wet nose as of yore  

 

 

 

 

 

 

12   moderato

 

take dogs on hindlegs (would-be bears)     go topless in the disco copse

     be dipso      winereekskittles play    with a fee fie foe fum

   as if they were beanstalk top     cloud castle bears     dim about their business

      all fist     and bruised      horn honks     impervious to pain     sip from the flask

  they've brought and pass    and so there is a circle                stand like stones

        receiving light   because the stars are deep in them    shining from time's

   borrowed beginning        they're whimsical that way

 

 

 

 

 

 

13  rallentando

 

what draperies of dusk gloom lift the spirits of the bear

 

a caravan of singles (snowdrift, Samarkand)     cloth of the precious touch

     clover of the dissipation as each slept en route           under their underwear

not even skin    all bears are equally rude      and innocent too

   because to begin with     bold seafaring bear toys with the tiller

 

twinkle of mischief            leaves twirl to earth       bears tumble

down the slapstick stairs      the well they wish will have no floor

 

        of meadow and mead      their blanket is the valley whole

        leaf-four-asphodel    your barefoot bear    the picnic's picture

    lissome, lithe and lush       with blankets and bottle      bears off the spoils

 

hush      bears are bushed  and need a nap now

 

 

 

 

14  tenuto

 

laurels never rest        their blindness as Beethoven's

wooden ear    their dale's a stave of notes      wrung air – hear  Old Ephraim

 

bears are ever more than merely      petitioners in duty bound      and humbly pray       

 

barrowing bears on a building site     will scratch till the sun is raw

they squint and curse and cudgel cubs      to be what bears are for

 

binge bears weep sorry in their socks      no never no never again

mendicant bears with supper to sing     lick bowls in a scrape

 

wizard bears with funny hats    must rule a parliament of cats

 

spoil the beer and hole the spare      bears will rue the day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15  lento, prestissimo, tenuto

 

sometime's a little lie down's all it takes           in baskets just from the oven          

by the teeth in their skin bears know each other       rope ladder climbing  

for kindred of hinterland     and flit   ways lit      bears go spare, picnics of em    

knock three times in a grove a bear knows    to gain admission to the processional

 

bears expel the money changers         bears are biscuits dunked

bears and bear lovers are going to San Francisco    stop into a church

they pass along the way (so wed at last when all said no)    the glee of bears

which leads to sparkle o others and lions appreciate     twink of the flag we animal are

 

 

 

 

16   largo

 

there is an order to the way things sit       bears settle up at the end of the forest

settle their debts with a wink little sluts              o reverenced bears

a goldilocks kidding          of stairs to rise      cinegenic as sung heretofore

super8 bears caught crinkled with stare      cast over pale      of each make and persuasion

 

ruminating greedy breeze shooting bears    and see the tats the tough ones wear       

 cicatrickery of theirs all under fur             dilute them then ask how much bear (?)   

and dilatory truth pursues     spotlit       kissing they tell            bears won't know their strength

 

 

 

 

 

 

17  mosso

 

    major and minor       work the crowd spruiking     come hither you beast     

 

exaggerate prowess      wake to the dance        hold forth       digress

 

bears in tutus and hoola hoop bears      Thylarctos plummetus museum top shelf  

 

apocryphal of numbers        the earthenware bear companion of congee

 

old Indian riddle the everywhere        and each of him distracted

 

torpid in cave of autumn fat     emaciated on parole      led about by jugglers

 

sanguine in age       the little sunbear teeth superb     selling for a fall

 

it is a gliding sprawl     the ice across       fable of the hug

 

has a bird flown through this head of mine?    in the lodge a smoke hour

 

bears tear up the rigging      cliché gnaws at the heart      do bears drop here?

 

       glaze over    till nothing's to feel       does the soul have corners?

 

 

 

 

18  a tempo

 

libidinous  and later raid the chocolate fridge     when midnight's else abed

tell fairytales      lulled to a score     the silence      a swaddling bedlam

sepia of their own nostalgia       woods have gone out in them today

wind three sheets to it     with their big paws    a gulp of the clock

 

and a bear ticks by        must be the season    bears lay their eggs

has to be a truth so brazen      bear's a bower bird brought down

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                               

 

 

19 fermata

 

the threadbear unravelled     clouds have quilt these least       best blue

of ceremony stood      soft shoe bears play shuffleboard

blow your woods down with last night's curry

 

bears up against a dentist's tut tut will down the varmint whole

 

 

 

 

20  moderato

 

swollen head      bee swarm      camera pans to exit – lake      the bear dive      swans attempt

 

 

 

 

21  affretando

 

wits about him in the city where pretty girls beguile      (all animal play is mimic battle)

bears of the sweatshop suffer       the others of the tribe are pratfall

vinegar brown paper        may as well live in a shoe

for all the bare cupboard      come rolling home      in the cuisenaire ticky tack

 

you know and I know     all headlong hot on little tails      bears out on a limb

sawnoff agree         they all got the raw straw

 

 

 

 

22 allegretto

 

up kilt and dirk and at em       split        by dint of ding 

     still Sundaymist      drapes first thing limbs       leaves are long

                      with last year's rain       full as blown roses white

 

    when the state withers       bears contend        sit with the cross of stars

and dreams come true       dreamt here already       shake off the grey terrier

             sad dance they do      light bulbs jingle      bears of a flock

feathered with a tarry jam       smack lips and that's their smooch     clench     die

 

 

 

23   rubato

 

concupiscent all edge now soil      skin's wisdom's gone      how for nothing?      gentle shy folk

       short of season     keen but a little    now with maker           blind bears bereft agingerly

what reveries of elsewhere mind?                 bears with ukeleles liven the various anonymous

 

a fireside   damp towels   smelly socks   some spines of books come loose

        sleep in their clothes just where they conk – the mysteries unwrapped

 

as music is maze to the brain      everything signature

            avant le picnic – might I say?     I  was a teddy bear

got glitter eye, cried      lay on the floor of the forest

 

bears on a cave wall view truth's bung flicker      blood of their agony hammers the heart

seems they are running from something as pointed     simple     arrow straight  shuttered   

 

 

 

 

24  largo, rubato, accompangnato

 

broad beam of rapture, tricks to take, a bag which is all things        folded

as wanted on the journey     let them be hungry for the echo         light from under

the otherly portal       accordion of legend list       how they are wayward with their words    

gather piano and pong – they won't notice     hot tears to weep     bears of the dance are whiffy

 

sunshine comes to the bears when they call     this is their solitary fun

    full of jaw encyclopedic  to be as good as a bear can be     as good as gold

blind of them leading the blind through the timber

 

winter and the stars have come so far      in the mirror of wishes already swum

as if a cloud of frost breath brightens    tuxedo bears bring theirs

 

make thunder in the cup up in heaven    blow kisses for gist and there's gust

tallow bears pinch snuff and grumble      a frowzy wild child insolent leer

nothing daunted tow the line           haul selves high     best to their unknowing

 

led banished by the nose to kingdom      bears of a feather nest disposition    

and each bear is its picnic dreaming      unto his her self replete    

having knocked once none will remember    why it is they have come

   

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                   

Shed

 

There is no grammar you can trust.

 

Take this one spark – follow it in.      Be lost.

 

              All sorts of things are so in a shed.

Tune for a start, though it will find you.     What's

                                      furthest from mind.

Take tip of the tongue, thus the piece joins it all.

                                    Whole clans

have gone missing with one mad idea.

 

O wilderness of shed

and manna, old meteor is home here.

 

                                                 And otherworldly

light for treasure. A shed's worth of something is

much of a much

               and that's good homespun.

See these posts?

                        They're from my day.

 

In a shed there must be room

                                                to stretch,

a beam that you can dangle from      to let limbs loose.

 

                                             So many things

shed are lost but memory holds all in

and so it is elemental with tin.

                                       You can have fire,

chimney to point. Air's fresh where window's gone.

 

     Great outdoors are all in a shed.

 

Chooks are possible though they should be choice,

better still spectacular unheard of breeds which do

the zombie walk, great rooster deeds for emulation.

 

Form follows function and a shed's always getting ahead

of itself.

  Corner turns to alcove, aisle – this is the result of pile, 

because there's nothing new here but everything

is born again, and messianic so.

                                         I knew a bloke whose shed

sloped down and down as added to

                                                                                                                                   

                                      till it was well in the ground

with demons, dark woods, Dante and Beatrice close

in a corner when the council inspector came. 

 

Can anything can be done?

                                Yes, you can paint as long as

there're cobwebs and cold. There have to be gaps. You mustn't

live in shed unless expelled, doomed for a certain time

to tread and so on

                 till invention makes up for misdemeanour.

Then you slink back with smart new prize, a lick of paint.

Fresh as a pet – you're a puppy. Gis a hug and all's forgave

and you forgive as well.           Go rude. Good night. Enough of that. 

 

You could have a fridge, but mouldy.

                                                Liquor is hard or else

you brew it.

            Joint apt,

                                    though once smoked

 

you must construe it.

                        Go for broke, run into strife, philosophize.

A few mates come round,  get carried away.

                                                            So in the morning

a shed will reek of unexpected – enormous oven, collection of gnats, piano

                        that won't go but teeters stairs.

                                       How'd that get there?

 

Life's short but here's all you'll need later. In a shed

there are some good bits of iron.

                                                       Ceiling's okay

if you can see sarking. A little rusty gal should show though. Tend

to the noggings and in between – you can see next door and also tomorrow. 

                                                            No one would guess

you were looking from there.

 

                                      Best sheds all predate the homestead.

Geometry is patching. Indicative of woman's lot –

                        how the longsuffering have come to glory.

See here the chimney years? 

                                    By yarn shall we know them, walls

turns rotting.  Chock the totter over above all.  Battens sag? Lay buttresses.

Make differential sprocket. Why not?  Draw breath is illywhackery. We hate a man

            who blows.     Everything's

expendable – first tenet of a paradise. Fruit must find wind fall.

 

                                                                                                                                   

Leaves should blow through a shed –

                                                gives a good impression

of drought. And there must've been water once or trees wouldn't

hang about. See seven sisters and the saucepan –

                                                 there used  to be a door.

 

              It is an act of irrigation, out from under radar. 

Smile in a shed or smirk half knowing – to do with facts of elsewhere,

what-if, worlds to come and without end. Hear the possums snore.

 

                                    Sit in dad's last chair, until one better's found .

You'll still think his thoughts. No matter.         No need to split ears

in the place of treaty and scheming. You can be dad yourself. Go on!

                                            Shed's something we have

long since hatched.          Can't see the shell though. This is solitary

patch, where one among the eachlings does as all expect.

                                                                                 Duty

to England must once have been, forelocks tugged

towards those Thames-shed hulks, whence we digress. What's past

is makeshift to belief. The lungs abrim, the prod of hearth.

                                                                             Tin long

to reign over us. Next to the missing number plates, suggestive

of a wreck, imagine the young queen's purloined portrait

turning of heads who did but see old lottery tickets tucked.  

 

While with three wishes, you'll admit         a parliament is mainly shed.

Wait for the others to clear out then       spill the vision.  This is the bottom drawer –

democracy of one. You'll wear your gumboots there because...

To limp's all right – implies past wounds.

 

                                                        In the gout afflicted shed

a stumble to secret best brew stash or life's last anchovy. See, shed

is an heroic place – no screens. You wear a singlet and yours are

the human arms in the cage of all the world's mosquitoes.

 

            O hallowed shed

            raised once in penance,

            a man could fall to his knees in there

            when God is bloke to him.

 

And cenotaph because the dead. Though they won't weary you with seeing.

There's billy boil for fervour steadies. You can sing if there's a song. Mainly though

an ear out on into the night. Flag can't be seen inside. That glow from a distance –

next planet. And in the gormless dark, when gremlins come, from miracle

to miracle       a shed's laid bare.

 

                                                                                                                                        

            Dream the secrets

            in the big soft chair.

            Dream a sun –

            it rises.

 

So many perfections to life. Then death must be perfect too.

                                                                                      It follows, fits.

In shed we dwell on it – there's time. Rain on the roof's a kind of proof.

And also it's a dare.  There's grief.

           

                        Apologies are best framed here. You can rehearse

them on the way because to shed there must be distance. And purpose?

Where's my stick to point intelligent design?

 

New fences are imagined, the strainer posts.

Right wire made tight, pumps primed.

Whole kitchens, bathrooms planned.

Effortless overhaul of machines (as it much after seems).

 

It's in just such questions the shed survives eternities, transcendent

all sorts. No one can be said to have built it. I call that theology.

 

If ever one's knocked down (forbid!), that ground is consecrate

to those of hushed deport who place the spanner by, sight the apt bolt gone.

 

Though true bottle may bring to the brink, never get maudlin with the beam.

There's nothing drugs won't mend. Shed is site of sacrament, covenanted so.

 

Noah's building an ark in his shed;

quod erat demonstrandum –

Flood's the thing to carry it off.

 

So each to own sheds are. Some are bone yards, some are tents. There are

museums, crystal palaces, world fairs that no one saw. I've heard of sheds

Hiroshima bright with something none should see. Pit bull to guard.

A season or so of shed heads sold, you could retire

                                                                        and world go hang.

 

Why bother with the grid?

                                A blowfly drone's annoying 

but one day it will power the place. The thing just needs

some nutting out. So leave it on the bench.

                                                          The peasant

is the king here. Where monarchs tinker with old crowns

no need for revolution. 

                                                                                                                                   

                          Nor is there call to rhyme in shed.

You wear whatever pants you like – sarong, sari, jellibayah.  

 

When light tires of the garden, there're still these leaning posts,

this tarp. Smell of dam water imbues, a pinking of dusk clouds looks in.

Gets all nostalgic for oil and battery acid fumes.

                                    Nights on the turps, just that. 

 

            You'll make your own false idols.  See how a shed

is existential – binning the chocolate wrapper, there's a sense in which

it never was. Nor does guilt enter into.       Shed itself is graven image

but kind thoughts will Christianize. Hear words with wings unseen in shed.

We won't call them angels.  The lesson is time's preciousness,

                                                       so go where time won't reach.

 

Once out of nature

one shapes the golden bough to sing

exceptions of a proven rule – 

such accidents as showers, frogs

goanna, or less – salamander.

By incident of refuge come,

a web is wove baroque perhaps.

But all that grows here is by hand, 

else phantom of limb long lost.

A conjuring and tricked together.

 

Radio pours to the paddock

and this is a heart to heart.

 

Because the shed's a mongrel thing, has every mix of paint.

It is best blasphemy against those sainted aunts once set foot.

 

You can walk out of it pure into the night

Just a puff of breeze between stars and doom

and guess the way we go.

 

a field guide to Australian clouds

prolegomenon

 

1

 

these are strange faces for a heaven             blow-ins

 

you see a fleet first, coasts dissolve          the new place shaping up

you have to keep an eye on it or it’s always already there

    

the pages dreamt                  weren’t we?

 

               aren’t they islands downside up?             ladder kicked out

gone if you blink             parliament quorate when inchoate           

 

a new sun every day           they’re coming

merino, sky-sill crew           dark and bright, the sorters’ bin 

 

I see them from the window seat – weigh parts of the fleece

the moment’s silence                skin in which – I must be the welcoming party                       it falls to me to speak

 

hello clouds then – this is country

 

think of those who were before

 

 

 

 

2

 

here's a present of fine writing

mallard, storks, sing in, from, to – mist tips them

 

in a chariot of this, the ancients must have overseen

an edge to us – blue halo           and then peering in

regolith, pedolith – mobile mud mantle – grey day of menacing tide

 

they have been inscribed, harp held on stately seat

Horus in among, falcon-headed           were gods so Cirrus-thin?

 

they fight with pillows           there’s nothing to rule in or else

tilt and lay you down to rest – you’ll get another game

 

isles prise apart, an England goes     

whether or not you watch, other worlds are

shadows chase sunshine over the water

  

 

         see here the Bountiful, and Roar of Lion, Messengers of Rain

Parjanya drives the clouds before him              there's Rüppell’s vulture

and the common  crane – vagrants of the troposphere

 

they visit us as well       our friar’s lantern’s wisp with a will       nose cut off

 to spite     smoke stands from the rye    

 

from a large family of haloes – this  sundog set among the crystal

 

misty, thus portending

 

 

 

3

 

I came in a boat       you came on a boat        it’s a long way back        

 

Wanjina was here – by this time painted so many times

                   (a little sky on the ceiling makes rain)

 

what washes up we’ll hang to dry                   

                         (the brush off as with Dampier’s flies cover the sun’s face)              

 

     from a pavilion in Peach Blossom Land        seas south as ours       

see a bank of them gilded and we look up    yearn for lotus, dancing flame

 

   the great bird comes to bear crews off       it must be the River of Ocean       

         Purgatory Mountain’s the counterweight for all that holy land

 

I came in a boat and you came too        whole year’s cheque, a sheep’s back

         yeeha   our boat has come in        

    

 

            dig! dig in till you’re just about in China – it’s only a matter of time

 

fray shape, keep to the line     breaks up      go dead still then take the air    

 

no other world requires it – nor speech, perception, pain

meaning’s the universe behemoth – will speak till it’s extinct

 

still, hear the song        as if a voice      under all that was said    

sky-writing in a trail of vapour        mortar’s bones of the free

 

           bob in the mirror        read what you like    when it comes glass

           heaven’s there backwards too

                           that’s how darkness passes

 

 

 

 

 

4

 

there’s the awkward thing you tuck away or try to       sweep whole carpet under             you swim from it but it’s the sea               

 

as funnel blue blown          lonely            meet my fate somewhere     

in caverns of rain and sphere fire over       on couch and strewn to billow

 

a window in       see them see us (so far sighted)      

 

by vimana        or by magic rug  (priced so many knots the inch)

we are the doubt    the suds    bathwater          shepherds look on 

see infant in swaddling               must be a body in there              

 

as if it were buttresses and vaults let fly        

the architecture of one day and never to be repeated

 

of course it’s alive                   breathes as you breathe

punch it and you’ll find a ghost           this is what distance does

 

if ever foe should dare             dig here           at the foot of the cross    

        hump coal sack         place sharks all round a continent

         and crocodiles for north         pinch a salt

then bake in orange tub with lid         you only need a sun!

 

 

 

 

5

 

call it our confusion, saluting of empires vanished

what we call farm’s a fence fog

 

climb at a right angle, under fire – what are your legs? 

 

the grey – it is coming to light from light

hills were woven from it – levitated suburbs lost past thought

fumes are this way – cloud small as a hand I set my brow in

 

takes its hundred years… dust again

you can’t see through it – that’s how post and rail are ours

 

build for a future          and firmament up

sure as the egg we’re in                 scratch a name, that’s the wall papered

you know where the voice comes from

 

at the sign of the Cloud & Cuckoo    (bolts flashed here and there)

hat equally floating     the drowned man suggests     troopers watch on         

 

who would dwell in the dark?      who watches the wind will not sow

 

all passing               aim sabre at windmill ectoplasm      joy strains

face trench down      digger!  here’s mud in your eye

 

 

 

 

6

 

imagine what furies pursue         years and no home

 

or there is a message – Hermes’ sighs piteous, crossing dark desolate

no joy here where none will sacrifice

 

and still the fact is rattling      opal faceted        so sunglasses

may be required – this is the furnace of the rain     

 

there’s one account in which they never move

but time surpasses so they’re seen                 

 

it’s as if each were numbered in God’s head                 

instance the biblical elevation of frogs      

risen from seventh, now on number 9 

 

like the market up      then squalls gather      they have been banished for wishing            (myth of the hailstone size of a house)      

 

who’s counting?           you ask me to care?

                         is that for the record?   or knowledge as it wraps and coils

            and trails away, wonder taken for a sign?         we will decide

 

 here – hold this burning pipe      be told!          I must light my cigar

 

 

 

 

7

 

imagine them dolmen still – fixed as if to the present

shape of a question mark                          carrying over

 

in pyjamas, upside down, map mobile

is it cerebration? ribs white rewarding with years all to earth       

    some laid paper, canvas fresh primed       feathers past the bird

 

still a last stitch insubstantial        lips bring together silence

 

under the mountain then silk river weed              whisper ways

heart of clouds moon-bent, green pine bidden

 

the cowherd and the weaving girl

either side of silver – it’s only ages part them

 

and a flock of magpies comes

 

what if the traveler never arrived?

if a bird had nowhere to light?

 

the queue was innocence after all

as history much later taught, it wasn’t a queue at all

 

dream of the pipe was sea’s top edge skewed

 

a stone bridge joins nothing to nothing

one day among immortals         ten thousand years down here

 

true, self pity is world embracing

patience is taught with spare time

 

 

 

 

 

 

8

 

what’s prayer but truth to lack a listener?    hoarse voice  finding

 

witness the fraying and the forming         could have made a meadow of it

and pollen sneeze of season rings like church across the glen

 

it’s all within a tree’s reach       the masterless sign gone floating       caught here       then herring in the rafters      

 

too close to the sun and melt or else the deep drags down

 

but fairy floss is cotton candy    (that’s clouds from both sides now)

 

don’t blame me if I talk to them         what have we given to see?

 

over the rainbow, arrows let        just a little island, dash them

Guantanamo the souls surviving         don’t you call me the deep!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9

 

        crossing the starry dome on foot, or tractoring, by quad bike

let us hail each          they’re floating in my scone, and tea, my tub 

 

once in a while among fay lamps     see the matchless everlasting       

as sprung from forehead fully armed      a mind’s-eye

 

       like radio waves go round forever        so not a syllable is lost

 

not the leaf limp stairs       but beanstalk borne

 

no one believes what’s in front of the nose

 

every cloud’s a pit to riffle for ores as yet unknown

 

all in a hundred elephant weight of not-quite-dripping tap

 

 

 

10

 

yes it’s abstract – nothing in it       min min lights

every star is travelling, followed        under the thunder tree 

 

you go swimming in the clock             for what’s the thing just I can say?   

like a tablecloth tugged so stay set

or someone took rug out from under       so I learnt to dance on air

must have been coughed up       has to be beard in it and sabled

 

before the gods there were the birds – took off with the dinosaur stem of the brain

 

I believe that they are made of flowers     too perfect small for eyes

some still we smell their coming          petrichor         though they are past horizons

 

if you had a deckchair there festooned like Christmas        eyes glued to the altimeter        

             day passing like a lesser moon (some worlds have two or more)

 

or if in a basket lifted among breeches of thought               a breeze leaves

          not a thing behind         it sings         it takes tunes with it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11

 

when I was dust …  or a mite …   ant met on the trail – all we talk’s weather…

                 I was one of those pinhead sprites     in brave cerulean, giddy, cradled

 

there was solemnity, procession – expect at bugle corners chubby cherubim

a wallow of them and poking through

just then you’d hear the engine start (imagined aerobatics)

 (sniff hard at the bloom but it won’t be back)

 

                             washing the inkstone, saw mountain in torrents

blood washes the brain of a night   hemispheres cumulus 

 

own climate made    then it’s my fog     scoundrel’s refuge home to roost     

 

in storm dreamt          Gondwana, fish distracted, swum here, bone drift

of paddock above          and the big hat cobalt’s to catch entreaty

 

a fence so the trees won’t get out            that’s the way we tick

     and witness                 stiff gusts               banners blow off

 

 

 

 

 

 

12

 

rose, violet – etched in if you snap them     secret      how did ochre spill?                

       

razors catch at frail cloth, tied like a heart            even day ends, even such a day 

colours we see themselves are exiles        lengths of the wave that won’t soak in

 

no one knows the tongue               we sing       waft of singed wool

man with rags dances       doll clings, each turn of the floor a new struggle

                        rags drowned in a puddle (make a cult of that)

 

Buckley’s or none, there should be a sign    cloud overboard (like a clock off its face)

and anonymous bolts         what is it chimney speaks?       retribution is divine reflux

 

     and so we traipse in this bubble    (icy planetisimal else)         

 

every way other-sided            come to a table fades, folds away

is it bread to break together?     so we are the banquet      there are animals:

camel, weasel, whale          & when you look back, the roos have gone

 

the line is hung with emperor’s clothes

time passes beyond me and time returns     a wink for the damned        on dry land

to the wire they bleat             ages of reason laid low      

 

we know that there are other suns        we’re very far

 

from a beached conch old skies sing       each as true to its shapeless drift

as we must be to our blue

 

 

 

 

 

the bees

 

up

to hive the mazed wood

because a forest lost us

afoot, where no leaf falls

fresh green to twig

all on the wing and never a prayer

store summer from the flowers spilt

breathe the secret paths of air

in ways of season got beyond

hear rain from distance

and see it to the pond, this age

of spears stood lightly thrown

fresh on the face where fallen

it has our hills away

climbing to be forgotten

a flutter － can you come consider?

rise with an inch up sun

in among leaves, bright

to be all other-worlded here

their pollen to the clock waxed hands

I bring a magic door － see me

and paint the sunshone world for you

so crooked woods bend paths

and these new pages of the tree

were such a song

stood past the map

sweet summer in the branches yet

last bee in its dusk flight and vanish

having never been before

 

 

 

the track is not where it was

winds twisting out of recollection

someone is under, for a spell

and all around my wonder

let the scourge be sweet

names of the bees, shall we recite?

no, they are secret still

 

 

 

bees

spin like sparks

in their night of smoke, hoard the sun

they wear it in stripes, wear the dark

in the hour before the shadows come, still golden

bees have gathered the day to this end –

the light within the hive

 

 

 

telling them

secrets intimate, births, marriages

the goings and the comings home

but most of course the keeper’s death

like a rosary each blessing

they are of an afterworld, from

and through the mirror

knock on the hive and tell the tune

lift the lid, lean in

the bees must all be told

 

 

 

an Easter of their passion

call then the colour of lions

finding, getting bearing about

a winter of their warming

can you hear how they tell?

who will box the flight?

in leaf such a sky as they bring

woken, are the drift of toil to joy

see question marks for halo round

call us to other hidden things

in the dance we never see

bees are teaching again

 

 

 

they are calligraphers of heaven

with tracks of pointed fire, scribes set down the day

may we be minded, arc and tangent, climb empyrean,

melt wings to wax － no two turns same

show the moment for itself

such signatures they make away

we follow to find ourselves

 

 

 

the bees are a wheel

whoever worked the treetops

saw the unleafed sun

and knew the honeyed roundness

or else we might have dreamt

our flight among the flowers

flitting one to one

 

 

 

a hover and a hum

over the hay

on the threshing floor

how brief a flower, all?

bees live in a poem like this

sunstriped through shutters

a whiff away low, over the chaff

guess at the angle, gyre and climb

bees are an innocence passing

told always on alive, a hum

to the sugar in the bowl

in this afternoon, to tea

 

 

 

the workers

could be queen, each

because they went their Monday rounds

and made their ways where no bee was

out of the hive night nameless

who make pure the light

here they are far in the firstness again

and petal bound to tell the deeps

one and one more they bring

that is so the flower sings

that never was before

 

 

 

the hive is a store of labour

a system of shadows

take off and landing

endlessly from hollow rock

rank and file swarming

all golden, by the book

fates are offered, wheat kneaded with

and where they hive

it’s honey cakes for Cerberus

bind a cup with wreaths around

before Dionysus took wine

there was this libation

 

 

 

the elocution of the bees

tell on, and sweetly once bees spoke

before that though sang valour, loves

the bee-loud grove, the bean rows

hung in heads, alley long the roses

no honeyed words but hard fought

precious we are to hearts

how we are the tribe we are

we were so we will be

seasons are in the bees

the summer hive on fire

dog days camp outside

all angered as one insect, we

drowsy, dodge a raindrop

and if the winter queen should lay

then all of us may die

 

 

 

the spaceman and the smoking gun

here home in memory – the mindspeck

more than one star’s light shows

as pictured in the compound eye?

bringers of sunshine so, aliens among

all godlight in the littlest

door in the hive, figure moted in smoke

how far such craft are come!

 

 

 

make a hole in the page

who flies through?

the watercolour bees, those in oil, the macro

the wings are faster than the eye, and make a garden where they go

bees of the dream imagine us hived in the honey and no one at home

of tinsel lit, here are the angels unbibled

sting my enemy and die

I go to grace that way

come to the flower and kiss like this

keep it under your wings

 

 

 

time in the text

where the bees have gone, all are immortal

and best never knowing which way we are

how we came or where to go

the bees were a suitcase I set up

not wanted on the voyage

now in a cowslip’s bell I lie

you see the arrows after flight?

nun scribblers in their little cells

with all the words that ever were

they are making truth of light

that you may read it here

 

 

 

 

 

 

jolly bees all vanish into a book

prophetic till the last I think it is the holy madness

(satyrs clash cymbals, chase into a tree)

was a time this was the sweetest thing…

stone from the bounds of ocean creviced

ambrosia is brought they’re drunk on one or another

through dust, through weight of day, heroic

a book like this one you too are in and will we

come out ever at all to give the breeze its wings?

a wilderness wild guess towards

the place does not consist of hours

we follow other creatures to the forest in the garden

growl, flap, do the business, tear

no one has understood yet why is this crisis to be?

bees bring us to an oracle － they have the power of rain

 

 

 

abuzz

and even before the speaking sun

from nectar to proffer

with just a little meaning jig

lift from these waters, fly

 

 

 

the god of all is a visiting bee

a poppy bruised, meadow me

lay acres between

rye and the spring － all this propitious

stole, was stung and stings too

at the dripping comb － come lap

 

 

 

down

flit errant in amber arrested in a pond reflect

shone through the skin, for a mirror, look in

bumble and drone － a little bounce, buffet

see through the smoke till devil may

driven from time altogether, banking…

all our sweetness and all, often dimmed to riff

a kind of doom must be

in wings of where we trick the light

come at it out of the blue

to feed upon mere air

time with the sky

 

 

1

of stray clouds

and of skies untethered

cows gone floating

in their same long since

 

great guffaw

no harm intended

the world a bucket

of gods peering in

 

and

time does its wings

its leaf defying

 

in a lean-to of words

left lying in weather

you make a comfortable cadging

 

throw the old routines for this

 

 

2

go out in a mist

as if the valley were such a beginning

and in it still a roar of road

and listen – a ridge

peers lit

see it all leaning behind me

stand of first songs ahead

great half light crossings

wires strong in the imagination

 

cattle call through

rub as if daylight

until there’s something signed

 

a sunbreath so

for now and then

 

yes it’s all grey up

so heaven’s close or closing in

depending on your fears

 

4

flutter of pages

blank with the telling

 

a glass of water

pure sky and quaff

light caught

cloud come

 

roof brings it

downpipe

and tank and pump and tap

all these complicit

 

same as birds have fallen for

a wink to the one

 

ponderous paddock the wallabies cross

 

elevenses

my walk

 

 

5

in the open

and come what blows my way

a spit at first

Lucretius’ errant air

that falls in atoms

 

at the breakthrough place

buzzy with the corner got

fresh green

the air in branches

the far sought

 

and watching the distance from rain

using the clumsy old bastard method

see

 

every stone in the field

is an animal’s ghost

this is where they fell

kicked up their heels first

here’s the plaque in paint

old palette

side of the shed

 

stand for the rain

an anthem of sorts

 

a lot of water gone into this

 

7

no blue like the blue after rain

then everything has its true smell

like childhood returned

then the sun learns its yellow

and thick socks keep you

 

see for the first time

cliffs beyond green

everything mossed for the tune

 

leaves dripping on the page where you stand

 

the house sinks in its sandstone roots

a year deeper fenceposts

 

come out for a chinwag over the cattle

 

a pine leans foreignly

like an island cast to the green sea

 

precious this short span

 

9

gully!

stand to! 

 

gold lights the track ahead

in every pause for breath

 

the yellow finch

an eye for me

checking

noting the shirt and the boots

and home to consult

what mammal is that?

 

 

12

in over the hills and faraway rain

pace of the day as gods have given

or what do you call them

the giving itself?

 

this is my brisk hill

twisted in bark

sap curled as the leaf points

mottled and patched

with my eye touching

when I’m here

 

and so towards the homestead by heart

so go to the pace

 

the cold aches in

 

see the bole and wonder

who’s lived in it

 

so many creatures

the one tree

 

these days deciding with myself

and none to argue the toss

 

 

14

glimpse of the infinite

and tribute too

we offer all our skill for this

to take the heart along

its own way

an opening

a glimpse

as if this sky were writing

 

which turns

forgets itself

goes on

first stumble after thought itself

and who’ll say less?

 

in the waxing

beak carried off

with wings into

and up to the feathery tip

 

how fine

that the eye goes with it

and the eye is a boomerang too

it falls to mold like leaf

never gives up the ghost

 

and lower still the camera

casts and catches

this for you

 

 

 

25

a lean with the breeze

which is fresh invention

 

as daylight restored in dreams

but this is our care for the real

 

strum into the dark

in the shadows of trees

 

an opening

to interpretation

 

my own tune stuck in my head – how’s that?

 

admiring the palette works

still some few rays for the back

one day run to another

stop – say we’re this far ahead

 

in smaller and smaller circles

perfect the art of not looking

 

you open your arms for the sky

 

in the end it’s all performance

a model of the days I’m out in

remembering to look up

wrens feather the scrub and the messy edges

go for the accidental intensities

 

to be lost in

to work to the top of the range

to be the old track itself

in and of

o grey with the gums

to reach as trees reach

and where the river holds last sun

be perfect in one’s hat 

 

 

 

 

Macao

 

 

red flag astern

black with days of work

 

the day in its seasons returning

 

a rot of planks, a gathered raft

I live in a box, worm burrowed

work my way across the water

sketch in the dredge and cargo passing

 

rats climb aboard, run stern and aft

 

in the bone creaking season

brain too damp to fire

from a crack in the cabinet

see the passage of ships

 

tobacco music from a height of rigging

tin to glint, streets fold away, inhabitants vanish

 

sometimes mist clears, Peru hoves in sight

ashore the prattle of coin, mah jong tile

 

 

a bird for light

aubade

 

kettle up against my sun

 

the bright of other days soaks us

as if the night were cracked

mere habit of haunting eyes

 

so thoughtless clouds stick unintending

boats crossing too in their first clothes

pale water holding up the dawn

 

a bridge, the Bank of China

   casts a glittering stripe

to bend the silver of my river

to take the wheel’s long bow

 

Spring!

an hour each week

with the rusting town

(barnacle in its spate

 

skin dark with dreaming

sky always blank)

 

the ruins rise with each lapse of attention

a temple crops up in the street

ghost thick in the mist’s flimsy fists

 

you tell me who isn’t a whore in this town

 

how much height to the rain?

there are no eyes up

no cupped hands to catch

 

each tattoo is a fleet of voyages

its brave limbs labour deck for tide

 

the place is given to deals half struck

the street too narrow for its horns

 

on days when you can smell the sea 

summer coming,

thoughts turn to miscegenation

 

in the medicine shop a man sits typing

(as ancient an act as any other)

something has been dispensed, received

the day out there for a blizzard of fluoros

 

the town grew from fevers

and none can say whether they were survived

 

the sky in its speech is shy but unending

 

sit on my knee and let me be Santa

a Lady of Sorrows looks after us later

 

you’ll see away beyond the Inner Harbour

the mountains round are not of this place

nor otherworldly either

 

noon

fan over durian telling the street

 

a bridge, a boat, mango skin pavement

     gold adornment under the fumes

no air con so I stand out for the breeze

like washing to dry

 

the fastest thing is conversation

the barbers’ poles too weak to turn

 

Monte Fort above St Paul’s ruins

the paved hill in its fallen flowers

a temple half way up

where they’ve painted the moss red

higher the dragonflies guard air

with infinite labours, cicadas sharp

 

there are seasons of heat

the walls stand falling

 

spent breath of the tourists

is mocked by those cats

who sleep with the canons up here

 

benediction

blessed be breeze and long cool draft

blessed be the waves and salt tide’s mock sweat

blessed be ice and cavern and air con

blessed be rock with its anchor below

blessed be the idea of beer, the picture of ice berg

the map of Antarctica, silence of snow 

  

 

Zhuhai

China proper, a lost hexagram

over the wire and the water

big sister, da lu, more real than the past

is it the ancestors or we at their behest

have scraped down green mountains

with gigantic claws?

 

fragment: the traffic turning – the beach is silt

above: the motor stalls; below: the floor full of filings

 

watch a man being arrested outside the New Century Hotel

he looks the type

bundled into the car by these self-conscious officers

are they even rough enough?

 

some wind today would bless these labours

 

the town

is a hinge, bridge an altar

built in the mud mirror

to bounce curses back

we are the vanishing sacrifice

 

sea full of set suns

never come to the boil

dredged of its salt and its silt

turned to cargo, still seasick of itself

 

a passage of steps

in the dark between empires

 

the whole place fits on the head of a pin

it’s from memory streets narrow

in duty to the roaring town

there is a crooked tower of smoke

today’s name on it, it spins

 

no height to the sky here, no depth to the blue

 

traveller, be wearied with

this edge you keep coming to

stronger than a breeze it lifts

and when it sags like this

poke the sky back with stick

or with a piercing blue-eyed glare

 

the country of the culpable

is far across the border

 

world is a wedding

of waters, of salt

a revelation with the moon

which does the business of the goddess

to strike the silver sea

 

crossing the bridge into autumn

the lean of the mountains

is something calligraphic

 

on Travesa Sancho Pança

the city folds like grime into dusk

 

small boy expecting dog to follow

scooters rise

piano beyond to take up the distance

how long in this village may I remain anonymous?

 

the market will cleanse me of every desire

 

 

 

painting the bridge

 

 

 

unedit me

 

unscript my sense

 

 

 

and with what suddenness achieved

 

 

 

in lidless blue

 

likeness of eye

 

my luck

 

to be kept in giant's writing

 

hurling beasts

 

at the sayso of reason

 

thus to see

 

what miracles expect of me

 

 

 

bewilderness

 

 

 

dream of the rooms yet to build

 

lost unaccountable in conscience

 

scaring wits from out their sullen hollow

 

  

* 

 

for every sentiment some retribution falls foul of its folds

 

 

 

ah - heady smell of the aversions

 

listing all of the past in what's to be said

 

live for the love of not knowing what comes

 

 

 

as one might ache into a stone

 

so many moves ahead

 

 

 

there is a war out there in here

 

perfecting skin first act of decay

 

 

 

which treaties threaten

 

good will and best wishes

 

are chafing away

 

 

 

there is a war

 

which the just know for rights

 

 

 

which God has enlisted

 

first among ghosts

 

big pot of flesh stirring

 

dares earth open

 

pants down at the foe

 

 

our dinner comes

 

and wash it down

 

 

 

song of ourselves

 

in their pain

 

singing mud

 

 

 

then there is

 

yet there is

 

war's decorum

 

stood under gentlemen

 

words would dispel

 

 

 

my story and I'm sticking

 

 

 

a wilderness

 

we live it here

 

 

 

breathes between us

 

breeds in us

 

 

 

in words which are

 

for sense to make common

 

 

 

perfect in accidents

and in delay

 

 

 

an orphan heart packed with fears

 

  

 

 

temple of lost lines

 

 

 

as if in a daze

 

of nights are come

 

elsewhere by nowhere

 

skirting by nod

 

 

 

at last to the sunstruck

 

ruins still stand

 

and in their lamps

 

come labour

 

reaches of the deep

 

empyrean re-risen

 

 

 

know now

 

as you always have

 

bush tall with voices

 

fallen out of the wind to tame

 

 

 

bluffing empty armed they come we unannoint ourselves

 

take stillness in the rush of paths

 

 

 

vagrant coaxings

 

full of flesh

 

and come to worship

 

 

 

here are the sherds

 

of knowing disordered

 

pillars extant

 

 

 

within

 

- the idyll of all script

 

wherever I am cast of shade

 

to mouth what others can't - my way

 

  

* 

 

 

five minutes in apostasy

 

in a fictional landscape

 

all telling is truth

 

 

 

shirts out, ties off

 

in rhythm together

reconstructed pagans

 

clearing a spot

 

to look on for the nubiles

 

they're trying to show

 

how they ought to be favoured

 

 

 

it's we who climb out of the. self to say

 

if ever there was ink in those veins

 

 

 

grammar breaks over

 

does the salt snouting

 

shines in our weed

 

the given sea

 

and over thick with trowel

 

sky set

 

 

 

between of barricades, footnotes

 

for vagueness of plying

 

the terror of vagueness

 

 

 

leads away

 

in not quite a knot

 

- impossible figure

 

solid and infinite

 

out of and in

other and me

 

  

* 

 

 

o truth you do the hollow ring

 

herding out of instincts

 

 

 

how can thought not regress

 

to know itself

 

eyes everywhere and of suspicion

 

authentic to some kind of faith

 

 

 

characters fed on thin air

 

need attention

 

sleep to dream

 

and wake to play

 

 

 

that's my wearying

 

chase of tale

 

my temple

 

lines

 

and loss

 

 

 

splash here

 

 

for the harbour

 

these pylons for staves

 

bare bones of the day

 

a singing between

 

 

 

dead as pelt

 

cords are rusting

 

 

 

we're slapping it on

 

or we're touching it up

 

mistbright

 

you start anywhere

 

in worn out bolts, washed out stars

 

 

 

a street thrown over the water

 

blue as Celts we come home '

 

in our owing forever

 

likewise in our always have had

 

 

 

sick with wanting

 

sick with too much

 

 

 

from the city grey

 

green of the shore

 

lightening to air above

or the bobbing deep

 

a bottletop green

 

unswimmable

 

 

 

an ending off in mid-air

 

 

 

we innocents of exile

 

 

 

the bridge is painting us

 

light singing over