The poster read:

“Gone Missing”

The come-back-kid
has failed to show.
The Old Man saw him,
******* by the Rainbow Factory
wall, against the wind,
like a prayer no longer given
to the prism-surfing life.

He said,

“The come-back-kid, might
Not come back”..

He wrung his
swindled heathen, left
with haversack and Macintosh,
hummed ballad in a Sea-King crown,
the colloquy of shepherd lore.
head far too full to sing,

Caught riding
in a burnt out car of
rude December archetypes,
an engine feathered Westerling,
to think.

He went
to where they bury boats,

Where mud larks perk
for potsherd farthings,
red-shanked in the gallon slob
oblivious...

Far off the Ness
He’ll watch them go..

... on meteoric dawn patrols,
a contrast to his built-in
obsolescence.

In provinces
of platitude
He’ll form no evanescent tie,
invoke his tattooed waxwing
back against their lactic
saccharine, to beg
the notion die...

But leavened light may carry,

A bold ceramic dialect
that skitters off
the short-sun marsh

dissipates in linnet banter
winnowed from the winter barley
crossing out the county lines..


The come-back-kid
will not return,
a blue-eyed, fell, Promethean.

Disfigured by the absolute
He’ll beat his way
unrecognised.

Swallowed
by Andromeda,
an alcoholic heart
bleeds neat particulars,

( Spun one spring round
the maypole Star
and even now
the grief is green)

A common lean
to Eden-seeking
hovers on, ridiculous,

preserved between
the pages, in this
Little book of Lost-Things.

Might as well
go one more round,

it wont be long
before they find
our deck of
haggard rafters,

all laid out
like body-bags
and facing in
the same direction.

Work it through
in pencil, in the margins
of a notepad.

They'll see
in tree rings,
years from now,
us , squeezed into
the sixth extinction,
fungal-spore
anomalies
in ice-core.



So, we
might as well
go one more round

got little left
to lose,

Come sand me down
those dancing shoes
again.

Begin beguiling day
Let night rest in chambers
way beyond the lifting light
warm the Moon-chilled air
and there, conjure up
the down-closed eye.
Return dream pieces
to their space, while
prizing strength from
comfort's clasp.

Now at hand
the time to take
the awaiting day
to task.

Lord, help me please
to stay awake,

For I cannot
be arsed.

Still

And
Strangely so
It seems

As if
the splendid
Earth lay wait

Inert
in barefoot,
open-door
propensity
suspended


Then to
this end abide
by quiet rules

Take mind to ****
the unintended
word that turns
through all of this

But know

I miss you

Still

A quarter past
The afternoon,
back on the chair
of bevelled legs
Baffled
with the hex
of number
Tested
by the brooding
threat, incumbent.

Never been too
good at tables,
Better that
I eat alone
Seen, faceless men
in grim apparel
waiting for
a chance
to come,

Convincing
with their
bare contempt.

And, I
the part
of all my sums,
cannot explain
where it went wrong.

Sat playing
with the cornerstones
of new denominations.

Have
come to quiet
the voices
to wrap them in
sea-fret,  to set
them aside for a while.
Rest ankles in campion barrows,
to search for the wonder
we lost in the chase for tomorrow.
To smile with the guise of a child,
if the moment be woken,

And, should it arise
from my somber entwines,

exalt in the pleasure of being,
supine in the seconds
of mystical present. Alive
in the genuine time
of my life.

Have
come to quiet
the voices
To wrap them in
sea- fret  to set
Them aside for a while.