Gull
hover head high
eye to eye
face down handstand
wing to air
yellow-beaked black-eyed
little kingdom’s king
swings on the wind
dips and sits
in an invisible sling
straight on staring
from cliff edge
to me
then whoosh
gone
up in a suck
of air
The Song of Time
Turn of the century, turn of the screw
Smack on the buttocks for Little Boy Blue
They came out together, reason and rhyme
Little Girl Earth and Little Boy Time
A house maid squats on the scullery floor
To the mistress’ blind eye, an invisible whore
Strange to consider for natural wives
A century born, and two little lives
As there in the shadows she struggles to prise
Two tiny babes through her lily-white thighs
Kicking together in natural slime
Little Girl Earth and Little Boy Time
Out they come screaming to waken the spouse
On the stone-tiled floor in the bowels of the house
In the streets, in the bars, on the music hall stage
They sing to the dawn of a glorious age
Long Live King Teddy Boy! Old Vic is dead!
We are born and embrace and we perish in bed
Having polished her forceps of fine silver spoon
The head cook glares at the bleach white moon
A pair of ‘em born, oh isn’t it queer!
At the very same chime as a century clear!
A baby hand curls round her plain wooden toy
I won’t let you play with that nasty young boy
For we once lay together with roses and wine
A beautiful servant, a man in his prime
So gently she presses those soft linen sheets
There are untimely deaths on Victorian streets
Yet the world sleeps so peaceful, in reason and rhyme
Young Mother Earth and Old Father Time
Hawkweed
sight for sore eyes
(Pliny said of hawks)
and for me in the morning
you’re a bright yellow sunburst
on skinny legs
stone-washed, drain-pipe rock star
of the day’s bleary eye
a bit like that dandy up the road
with his lion’s teeth
his seed-ball
and his bedwetting dieuretics
hieracium morurorum
many-headed flower-beast
multiplies without recourse
to male or female cells
just one-night
self- repeating stands
apomixis flora mastibora
ultimate narcissus
dirty little stop-in
erect and hairy
and long in the tooth
spun rosette about your feet
lanceolote and royal
we salute you
at the dying of the day
hungover head
bowed west
to a spreading sun
your golden crown
wrapped close about the eye
snug and dry
folded for another night
over the garden drain
with an air guitar
(26.08.2008)
The Night That Never Was
The night that never was but is remembered
The touch that never reached but still is felt
The mouth that never spoke but said I love you
The heart which always burned but could not melt
The eyes that never cried but saw such sorrow
The voice that never sang but knew all songs
The day that never led to a tomorrow
The right that felt it justified all wrongs
Blackening Sky
while they’re burning that dead organic matter
it flares up perpetually
over the surface
gratifies an insatiable greed
a hollowness
dug out
from this death wish
something has materialized
and reduced to ash
in the deep, despairing heat
distraction, mirage
haze of wealth and fashion
all gets eaten away, providing feint relief
again and again, until
those buried layers are exhausted
in a blackening sky
Cuckoo Flower
alone by water’s edge
marshy dank gloom of the old pit
those petals in a Japanese dance
cross hands and bow to the sun
little else but the reeds
and the terrier chasing a duck
that scoots over the pond
cutting its glass surface
with outspread feet
I don’t know you at all
but our eyes settle on the Lady’s Smock
the Cuckoo Flower
perfect in her place
knowing she will return another year
to serve milk and tea
(2008)
Sidmouth Esplanade
At The Royal York and Faulkner
The entrance rotates
A clock with no hands
A world without dates.
The receptionist’s bell
Brings a perky response –
The bags in the hall
Will be carried at once
To a room with a view
Second floor, number three,
Where she’ll sit on the balcony
Sipping her tea.
As the permanent residents
Congregate nightly
For dinner at eight.
The husband’s quite sprightly
Though she’s on her sticks
And needs to be coaxed
From the chair to her feet
In her slippers and socks.
*
Evening descends,
The lights are extinguished,
Feint sounds of the town
Can be barely distinguished
From the breath of the tide
Or the squawk of the gulls,
The scraping of feet,
The ship’s bell tolls.
But yes, in the distance
A loud raucous bass
The cackle of youth,
A slap in the face.
She turns on her side,
Pulls the eiderdown high,
Thanks God she is deaf,
Cups her palms in her thigh.
The fine stucco’d walls,
The pelmet and rail,
The grandfather clock,
Today’s Daily Mail
Are a certain defence
And will surely withstand
The deepening sea,
The vanishing land.
But there, in the distance,
The loud raucous bass,
The cackle of time,
The slap in the face.
The Royal York and Faulkner
Slips into the sea.
Food for the limpets
Starboard and lea.
*
Some driftwood is bobbing,
It dips and rotates –
A clock with no hands,
A world without dates.