Dwellers in a chalk and limestone country,
We never knew the well-watered valleys of Eden,
Whose Four Streams never ran dry,
The freshets and the fountains of that garden.

For long, it is said, we wandered in the desert
Where all the streams ran darkening into sand.
For survival, we ****** the damp grit
And in the dry storms held each other’s hand.

Faithful we may have been, yet had no faith
To smite the living granite with a staff.
We were not the kind for miracles.
It was enough sometimes to hear you laugh.

And now we have come to our own territory,
No Eden, but the pastureland is good.
The waters flow here unpredictably,
But here at least is neither sand nor flood.

And we, the fallen lovers, knowing thirst,
Learned long ago to play the waiting part,
And have most joy in knowing after cloudburst
The winterbournes and swallets of the heart.

I cried as the stars bore low, a listening ceiling of silver rips and pins. There was no moon and they pressed lower and lower still.

And all that could be heard was the ebb and flow of one creaking
breath, one and then another,
going, going;
I was surprised that they were mine.

I pushed myself forth and away from the horror of your love in that coffin of a room.
An epithelalium, a dirge and a hymnal came to me at dawn. It was a birth into a clean white winter.

There is a bright place on the frosted pane where my salt water has melted through;
Though I falter in my steps I know my legs will carry me far away.

Her love spills out like scarlet seeds,
and red wine rolled on jealous tongues,
and gold leaves nestled in her hair.
It feathers during secret deeds

whilst breath is passed between two lungs.
Rubies cluster at her throat
like blood clots that her flesh forgot.
She draws him to her, limb in limb,
a desperate love dressed up in quilts.

The seeds that bloomed may sometime rot,
and candles die, and lust grow dim,
but I dreamt that he'll still gasp her name,
and she wish to be close to him.

I've forgotten what it feels like to walk on cobbles,
Forgotten the smell of life, vanilla from the bakery, coffee in the morning,
Warm air and leaves blowing. I've forgotten the sun, that the planets still turn, how other people say my name,
What it's like to hug a friend in passing.
Forgotten standing in a butterfly house in the summer and smiling, couples sleeping like lazy housecats on the grass in the park,
The lives of strangers. 18
and now soon to be 19, too young to have no memories of summer, on the verge of leaving myself behind forever.  I think that soon the world will forget me too.

We all went down to the river early one Saturday,
along the main road, cold hands in pockets,
walked through the park and stopped to hear the happy shouts of children playing on the swings.
I'd forgotten what it was like to play.

And into the river they all went, leaping and splashing like otters
in the cold November water; churning and frothing, sending dazzling light everywhere. I saw the black branches of the trees
shooting up every which way, impossibly high,
wise and old and solid, against the endless white of the sky.
I sat on the bank with the towels and stroked a little dog that walked by.

That night I looked a little longer at the leaves blowing on the quad;
the mist swirling on the grass and
lights blinking off and on in windows with the curtains open-
I saw life reflected there.

The wintering started on a dark December eve; slowly and silently,
it numbed me through the window panes.

I dove off into the wine dark sea.
As cold as death, as cold as resignation.

The sickle moon smiled placidly down as I melted into sea foam.

Do you remember that night when
the pines thrashed their poor limbs
in the dark,
And the moon slipped away unnoticed
as though it was a ghosting?
Spun from spider's silk, it darted shyly behind the comforting skirt of a cloud:
that was the first dream.
And do you remember
how I tightroped along the silver trail of foam where the lake lapped at the cold rock, imagined myself
a creature native and indued unto that element?
I've heard that Nymphs bleed a certain colour-
When I slipped and fell
my blood was the royalest blue,
                             I swear it.

this is the last golden moon that I will see, I should think
the only and the last           so I tiptoe down to Jericho

and watch them wash the artichoke hearts in brine

(I wonder if I could cure my own heart in that fashion)

and the man in the cloth cap gives me a coffee from the machine


I walk back in the weak light of that shadow hour,
When all is still and the doves are cooing in their nests
the moon winks down on me. Don't do it, sister


I am the only and the last    she says           for there is no moonlight in the sepulchre


and in my blue silk shawl, my pale veined hands            that moonstone ring like a fossilised tear

I can't leave myself yet. My mother

in her bed, sleeping soundly, and the river glittering through the bullrushes

this is not my only day, nor my last.

As I walk into the night,
as white as a milk cat,
as pure as a cauldron of snow,
I walk blindly.
Not knowing my own potentia.
But when they see me, spotless vellum, unpierced velum, a lamb,
They whisper snatches of carnal knowledge in my ear.
They make me Eve and Pandora,
But I am Ophelia,
and I am Proserpine:
I wear her pomegranate in my hair.

The red briny sea longs for the sky, the land
But she cannot touch either; she fizzes secretly with jealousy
That men may breathe the air and tread sod.
The sea has seen many things; tossed longboats, cloaked monsters,
Heard trojan song. She does not tell.
There is too much of her to count or chart,
At night she bathes the sun, and when morning comes
She hangs it out to dry.
By day she watches placidly, smooths treacherous rocks.
The sea smiles as she watches the fisherman at his table,
Through the little window that faces the bay,
Eating his stargazy pie.

I would like to float on a tiny boat
As lonely as can be.
Between silvery stars, and silvery fish,
In the middle of a dark, cool sea.

I would like to lie down in a freshwater stream,
A reed-tangled, shadowy brook.
Like Ophelia in her watery tomb;
Where no one would think to look.

I would like to be found on some shingle beach,
Blasted dry by the desolate air.
My siren song has died in my throat,
And I've samphire in my hair.

Let me sing to you my memories,
those pretty, faded, paper shapes.
How do you like the fire contained
in one dark and inward-turning eye,
Or the sugary fog of winter?
Borne in
on the broken wing of a collared dove,
a silvery sliver of northern air.
Do you hold my love in high regard,
as high as the strawberry moon that winks down on Trafalgar Square?
I think not.
I will snip the heads off those hot house roses of yours,
one
by
one.

in the sun
the strawberries pulse
like arterial jewels,
and I remember
the velvet death of winter frost.
so softly, be still now.

but I am weak,
a rotten apple
plagues the clear waters
of my mind's eye.

the pool is still
and crows silent.
lay down my lady
in her cloak of green,
the winds of spring
blow now, blow.

and I sink down in the fold
of mossy earth.
the moon winks,
that elven eye of the night

I remember us. Arm in arm under the white void of December sky, and they were singing gaudete.
The lights died down then, and your woolen hand fit snug in mine,
I loved you.
Until the spring, enjoy this last perfect snowfall, but one.

I am but a dim flare of light, panic lantern.
Much like a portrait in a darkened room,
you search my shadows in the vain hope that
I might betray myself.
Cloak me the hierophant, the lightning struck tower.
Fool: name me the Lady Ineffable.
Steeped in mystomania, I wait sharply.
Whisper once more, with feeling: I shall not tempt.
Spring forth the midnight canopy,
Draw bed curtains of bullrushes,
Let me sleep the sleep of the dead.
A whole forest of golden branches strains
to hear my ragged breaths, sweetheart.

If I had a little time
I would walk in the meadow with you, my love,
and feel the sun on the nape of my neck.
But the hours fly by,
the weeks melt away like chocolate in the sun,
and I've pretty clothes in the cupboard, but nowhere to wear them.
I've youth, and a little beauty,
how I long to be free and far away from here.

He took me for a lover whilst I was on holiday in Italy. He was Italian- the married man who owned our villa.
Every night after twelve, I would creep out of the house in white lingerie and a silk slip that glowed in the moonlight. My lips became a dark, sticky flower of cherry gloss.
I knocked on the downstairs bedroom door. He would open it, and as he stood there he was silhouetted in the dim golden light of the bedside lamps.
He would be in the middle of shaving, or holding a toothbrush, to make it seem like he’d forgotten I was coming- but every night I heard him hurriedly making the bed, shouting at his wife, and pacing up and down on the leopard rug. He called me his “dolce angelo” (sweet angel) and I called him my “belo diavolo”(handsome devil). His fervent lust was punctuated by whispered vowel sounds and a dark, vampiric beauty.
In silence, we shared cigarettes and ignored his black and white wedding photograph on the dresser.
In the morning, as dawn lit the mountains and his chickens began to crow, I straddled his chest for a last stolen kiss, and knew he would watch me bathe in his pool that afternoon.

Downtown lights glow through an avenue of trees
The dark haired girl sits outside on her balcony again.
Inhaling the cold blue air
And Tangibly
Hot city concrete mingles with night rain on a ***** pavement.
I stalk the streets
Headphones jammed in, jazz floating around in my head,
The girl turns and blows smoke at me, adjusting her radio,
pulling the hem of her shorts down.

Snowflakes clump on raven hair,
Floral dress and red cardigan on a windy night in December.
Voice like Persian honey,
Amber eyes flash and lips part -
A rogue daydream.
She is my fire. My flame,
An enchantment cast at nightfall.
She sleeps in the orange twilight, wrapped in warm linen,
As roses and wood-smoke choke our summer rhapsodies.
She is an idol, irreplaceable,
My chief desire, my breath and blood.

Light pours in through vaulted beams,
golden sun streams on darkened oak,
whilst soles echo on the mosaic floor.

A chorus rises, and flies amongst the eaves
where starlings coo and spiders nest.

A stained-glass tear rolls down Mary's breast,
hot candlewax pools like the spent love of a *****.

Castrato lilts fill the heady air,
winter chill banished by glinting lamplight
that catches in the eyes of sinners,
a memory of some distant hymn once heard before.

I bought a Carthage apple from a goblin man,
so red, so juicy,
all the little seeds wormed out onto my skirt.

Then I saw the goblin man snuffling around by a tree,
I paid him a silver sixpence for some purple roots,
they made a delicious soup.

Now my hair's falling out,
and I dream of seed-worms and rootling teeth.

Along the country lanes of England's sleepy hills
eyes glint in the hedgerows,
and tree limbs thrash in the dark.

A school bus trundles around muddy roads,
past a graveyard surrounded by brambles
and a weather-beaten oak tree in the middle of an empty field.
Its charred branches lie by the gnarled trunk
the aftermath of a thunderstorm.

In June a sickly heat rises over boughs
of rotting elderflower and towering nettles,
dark blackberries are protected by tangled masses of thorns.

The woods stretch out; dark, hushed, in every direction,
until they are woken by listless car headlights.
thin and ghostly, the trees quiver in the face of feigned daylight.

Snowflakes clump on raven hair,
Floral dress and red cardigan on a windy night in December.
Voice like Persian honey,
Amber eyes flash and lips part -
A rogue daydream.
She is my fire. My flame,
An enchantment cast at nightfall.
She sleeps in the orange twilight, wrapped in warm linen,
As roses and wood-smoke choke our summer dreams.
She is an idol, irreplaceable,
My chief desire, my breath and blood.