Whoever reaches into a rosebush may seize a handful of flowers; but no matter how many one holds, it's only a small portion of the whole. Nevertheless, a handful is enough to experience the nature of the flowers. Only if we refuse to reach into the bush, because we can't possibly seize all the flowers at once, or if we spread out our handful of roses as if it were the whole of the bush itself—only then does it bloom apart from us, unknown to us, and we are left alone

The white noise of tarmac fills my ears
The mint of a humbug sweetens my nostrils
Mix in the stale odour of mum's last drag
And you have the annual pilgrimage west

The cool windowpane presses on my forred
Like a mother’s hand on a fever
Hedgerows simmer past, my young imagination
Penetrates the haze

Who was that?
Glimpsed for a moment
An old man in a scarecrow gown
Shuffling in leaves and loosening traps
In no-man’s land, once known
Now forgotten

Condemned, he looks somehow familiar
A sting of recognition- this is me
Half turning to look briefly, I see
My own cold blue eyes, the same
Stoop in the neck, ready for the noose

A window opens in the front
For the punctual smoke
My thoughts ****** out by the vacuum
Now there is just white noise and nausea
Nausea, and that familiar sadness
Of a long buried future

7.8.23

Write what I know?  I am pocked with
chunks of broken moments.
Bits fall to the ground, trip me.
The terrain of my youth is a
moonscape.  I know what I know in
the craters of this place.

Born on the darkside and thirsty, I was
cold.  I found the sun later when I
was tumbled out the door of my
Mother’s leaking house.  Her screams
had become tentacles of maniacal
music.  Or do not call it music for
if you heard it you would not dance.

I am old now.  The view from my landing
is filled with sunlight and children,
“There are children in the leaves,
laughing excitedly”.   (Eliot)
I am paused in this imagination on
occasion.

When she is quiet,
I sweep her under the porch
where she lies drunk and unlaughing.
I do not let her out.  Yet she
steers me.  Her corpse loud
in her ***** nightdress.  

The terrain of my old age is pitted
with the debris of this haunting.  She
unsings me, makes me lie in
craters from which I climb up
daily only to tumble back down,
to have to begin again
from the bottom each new **** day.

But I sing as I crawl. And
she does not like the sound of that

Caroline Shank

Soft seed circles, poplar motes descend
Come to rest, on this green slumber of Thames,
Just here, I drop my bike,
Moved to write,

All around they fall
Then rest like stars
An infinite blur ,kissing at my ears,
I am in a galaxy

Ancient light slowly turns above
I cannot remember last seeing that,
The infinite twinkle and smudge
Edge of earth to edge of earth
That makes you disappear,

I feel some of that now
The slow turning
Forever falling

25.6.22

Re-write 10/4/23, 10/11/24

“London calling to the faraway towns…”*
[The Clash]

God man, trinket man, fake leather wallet man,
Drugs man, drumming man,  dancing on the street man
Antique man, eel man, bus man, trades man
Boots man, bagel man, feed me I am hungry man,
Fit man, gay man, straight man, trans man,
Chinese man, white man, "oi-back-to-where-you came from" man
Business man, rugger man, beautiful wife and kids man
Eco man, hipster man, shouting man, shaking man,
Scowling man, scumbag man, shuffling don’t come near me man
War man, drunk man, cruising near the bushes man
Watching man, medal man, pickpocket poor man
Box man, sleeping man,think he might be dead man,
Lost man, lonely man,
Looking from the ledge man