Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room,
  And hermits are contented with their cells,
  And students with their pensive citadels;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
  High as the highest peak of Furness fells,
  Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:
In truth the prison unto which we doom
Ourselves no prison is: and hence for me,
  In sundry moods, ’twas pastime to be bound
  Within the Sonnet’s scanty plot of ground;
Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
  Should find brief solace there, as I have found.

Upon a moonless night,
The man among the dreary horse,
Cried a lonely tear and said.

To die a lone be the best of dreams,
In this cold and blue night.
The void is fulfilling my loneliness.
Come and listen to it sing.

For songs will be sung, true and untrue,
And voices will silence into one.
When I sleep I fly, but in this earth I’m bound to die.

Rescue me then, O lord of the Dead,
Beelzebub take me, I’ll be you’re bride.
And the winter will come again.

Then in a time later when,
The other dream came imagined in,
The lion showed his mane and roared.

How fearful and hopeful the sound reverberating upon my skin.
Sealing doubt cast into the fiery Furness.
Say what you say about depression or doubt.

For there is no better cure
Than to smile all demure,
In the face of hell.

eaked through a piece of cloth.

‘the mouth’
you were meant be;
calmed
or else led-
to be calmed
once more
and allowed through the gate quietly;

so says the day
that reaches across day
churning the streets
until silenced
by life;
and nursed back to fury

by the peace of words
from human mouth
without the faintness of sense
they are different to yours;

no matter which world
you see hanging around
the mouth of furness
and steps
inside you
welcome you
deeply

there’s no fixing our pulse
there’s only fixing
our expressions
of it, that love our play,
the hedge cutters know it best,
the gambits that pull our actions from sleep
and clip a square heart into bush
and the ministers and bed louse
know it best

and nothing knows it best;
whilst here
as we do

something as small
as dancing through
and from within time
of womb bone and jaw
and knowing your gleaming
mate
is equal,
to your fear
of absolute passion

knows you best.

pulp flute
for dandelion craze
on Furness toads

Come to me, here, from Furness Vale

To this idle county, where
a dozen stations stand in
wait to loan the City her suits
and collect them, weary, at the day’s end.

Descend the chasm that splits
England’s pleasant pastures
and concrete miles; a balancing
or cancelling act that renders neutral –

but each Spring I watch from my window
the azaleas that blossom in my
neighbours’ garden, the petals peeling,
revealing, coming undone by the swelling heat.

Be here, Scarlett, let me watch
our shadows spread across my wall
as the shifting sky paints the room,
like burning embers.

And, sun sinking, let us go to bed.

The depth of a quarry
The mass of the ore
The heat in the furness
The diameter of the bore
The skill of a marksman
For sure. For sure.