The movie shows
an innocent man,
misguided, perhaps,
but well intentioned
killing a creature
he thought to be a pest
and full of remorse
for the unhappiness he caused

In fact,
the man who killed Mijbil
never confessed
never repented
did it for gain
as otter pelts
were worth a bob or two.

A tiny ghost
haunts a ditch
by a single track road
in Scotland

And the vanished marshes of Iraq
know which version of events
to believe.

A million people
marched on Whitehall
every footfall
was a trumpet blast
every placard
bore an epic poem
every eye
flashed righteous lightning
and it made
absolutely no difference
at all.

A countless headed monster
rampaged through the village yesterday
smashing everything in its wake
befouling the water
and devouring my whole family
in its slathering jaws.

It really was no consolation
that it brushed its teeth afterwards.

Hunkered down
against tides and waves
they allow themselves
a certain satisfaction

Cold currents surge past,
bringing them all they need
shifting them not one jot

But in those currents
their own young course and swirl
adrift, alive,
gauntlet-running,
glorious

And the barnacles wonder
whether they may, perhaps,
be missing something.

Christmas died with Santa Clause
when I reached a certain age.
The magic revealed as scam,
the wonder now an act
maintained for the sake of form.

This descended, in my teens,
into outright distaste -
all the trappings
a failed attempt
to light a lost wonderland;
a decorated tree
incongruous and distasteful
as a chimp in a suit.

Anger waned,
disinterest set in,
and I merely wished to avoid it all.

But through your eyes
a miracle occurs:
Papa Noel, mistaking his season,
makes an Easter of Christmas
by rising triumphant.
A tinsel star becomes a true Polaris
and love,
for anybody's sake,
is everything.

(i)

It's no use
the legs aren't up to it anymore
and he's barely an eighth of the way up the mountain
when some kindly climbers
opt to help him down.
Confused and broken of spirit
he is returned to the home
and time stops passing once more.

(ii)

The fog whose descent
has sent him north
has one last trick to play:
though he reaches the top,
through bog and heather
and bone-weary exhaustion,

it is the wrong mountain.
He has misremembered the name
and all he finds at the hard-won cairn
is a gentle ***** down the other side
and a group of picnickers
who eye him with sympathy.

(iii)

A circle which was opened
when he was fourteen;
when a frozen night in a frozen tent
was swept aside
by a breathless climb
to a dazzling white peak -
Liathach -
and a view over crashing cliffs
into the wild blue
bore the thought,
"This, when the time comes,
is where I will end it!" -
is closed.
And the body joins
the half-flown soul
in the mist-swallowed distance
and beyond.

Six in a row,
coincidental in itself,
all screaming at me
like the audience at a pantomime:
"Look behind you!"

So I do.
And there's still nothing there.