In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport - by
Here, where the noises of the busy town, / The ocean’s plunge and roar can enter not, / We stand…
Here, where the noises of the busy town, / The ocean’s plunge and roar can enter not, / We stand…
Skint, baw ragged, poackets ful eh ma
/ fingers, cannae afford tae burn toast an
/ it’s November. Christmas is close. Av been
/ away bit…
Finally, I’m done with the phone calls and everything else
/ and when I switch on the radio it feels like lying…
All the love I have will not take her years away:
/ All the knowledge given not grant her time release,
/ Yet one…
Nineteen fifty six was a momentous year,
/ The year of Suez…
I am sending a message again.
/ Maybe you can’t hear it
/ through all the noise of lights
/ and the dangerous way things…
Here is a letter
/ come across the ocean
/ over the back of a world
/ curved like a whale.
/ I unwrap it, like tissue,
/ and sentences…
Chairs move by themselves, and books.
/ Grandchildren visit, stand
/ new and nameless, their faces’ puzzles
/ missing pieces. She’s like a fish
/
/ in deep ocean,…
for Robyn Marsack
/
/ Go take a book down from the shelf and open it.
/ Listen, this isn’t ‘book’ but box,
/ box full…
When first I saw you in the curious street,
/ Like some platoon of soldier ghosts in grey,
/ My mad impulse was…
There is a god who tends / the empty corners of public places / the spaces where no one goes…
He is a man for whom everyone’s a trespasser.
/ Co-existence? He doesn’t believe in it.
/ Give you the time of day? Not…