Early morning

Early. Walk 
to buy milk.

Wind scuds the road
raises dust-
-devils forces 
tears to haul 
behind them
pails-full 
of grief, fear
of your death.

Returning.
Milk and bread.

Sun warms my spine
unshadows 
the blackbirds’
aerial song
bidding accepting – 
brick, privet, cars
iridesce.

Arc of the 
bridge connects.

One walk
one day
home.

Material fact

I can see

surfaces

only

which, I see,

is two metaphors

or three.

 

No poetry in pain

No song

no poem in pain

nor civility

the herd move away.

Flesh tears at the mind

pitifies spirit.

I lap alone at

my old pool of blame

anger nescience

growing more thirsty

fearing the house-beast

moving in the dark

to kill.

.

Hunger

Sex, food and good wine
satisfy and feed
hunger. Power too.

Calling

Calling

The ’phone rang in the funeral
and we thought, from beyond, perhaps?
a text to request a second chance?
but no, just to say He’d be late
that day. Quite unnecessary.

She caught my eye

She caught my eye

and threw it back.

I blinked

blind-sided

and caught out.

Reading fiction on the train

Reading fiction on the train

Through one frame an unreachable

world skims pastwards, speed images

stasis, a plane pinned motionless

to sky, a man embalmed in smoke

poised on his doorstep, travelling

on the myth that destination

is boarded with beginnings, films

watched backwards, having read the book.