Mine is a copper weathervane’s hen’s eye view:Vertigo. Looking down on Sir Walter’s pigeon stained head Thick wavy hair, so lush, did he wear a wig?Above greywedding cake tiers, right hand holds walking stick In case you don’t know who he isLeft hand grips documents, manuscripts Erected by Ritchie for the Gentlemen of the County, […]
A few treeless meadows awaited your text
amid the overtones of Rackwick where next
to scriptory herds, you sermonised to shoals
how poetry’s an archipelago of souls:
He wrought at one great work for years;The world passed by with lofty look;Sometimes his eyes were dashed with tears;Sometimes his lips with laughter shook. His wife and child went clothed in rags,And in a windy garret starved;He trod his measure on the flags,And high on heaven his music carved. Wistful he grew but never […]
Doncha see the future
brightening like a golden sunset?
Each time I called for him he was perfectly ready,equipment checked and in smooth order,pared to essentials. And I, cluttered with gadgets,would clatter behind as he led the way downstairs. In the boat, as befits a sedulous angler,he was taciturn, though between essential wordshe would give that courteous, gentle smilethat was his signature, before his […]
Box work
Certain women. And some young boys.
/ Women with some uncertainties
/ but something they knew about
/ that made them need to say something.
/ Two of…
Except for Iain, who looks both found & lost, / already haunted by his own baffled ghost…
A lifetime of work to own a house / then you end up diminished by it.
Sassoon, the elder, Sunday golfer; / Owen, bookish, gangly, pale – mingling / with the queue for the refectory.
the light comes back
the light always comes back
Three thousand miles and nearly half a year
/ Away from a drab November afternoon, hysterics
/ Of friends forgotten, and also the plain…
