the tension in
stressed blackwood
skinned wing

of a sparrow
the clean knife
of a december wind

all this
all this
steps on gravel
the night's last

stepping at the sun
with written ankles
our lips divided

as the sun profiled two faces
the passing of a warm stone

ash-teethed                                  milk-eyed
a hunter's shadow                      baby round
climbing down                            nail new
wet cardboard                             lover tested
street runner                                packed and bound
so down the dark road               sleeping sea

the distanced grunting
of schedular lovers
the smell of toast at doors

an early child
screams at the rain
church bells demand

that crows attend the boxing
while streets are as empty
as a doll's eye

a week later

now spectral in mist
a corner child in circles
well versed in slides and swings

pleasured in unoiled hinges
and the soft giving of sand
you are rain on tiles

lost from the back of my eye
you hide in evenings

A collection of sights
Four gardens and a heathen cat
Trees of submission, open grass

(Hamnet still locked in light, somewhere)
Stretched hours nearly closed
(Perhaps a hint of him, hidden)

Word-strings up from the street, ignore
Hands of children, windmills
(Tomorrow maybe, just a chance)

Grillsmoke, childpipe, pulled seconds
Blue-white flags punish wind poles,
Somewhere a door bangs shut
There is distance but only just

You may be punished to see a ghost
Crossing a garden of hard borders
Or a hand on an unknown task
Pulling at greenstuff or wild roots

Bees hum like steady diesels,
Someone laughs with falsehood
This is what  we want to own
Under an expected sky.

All through Saturday morning
(the wrong time to walk)
frost hardened my steps.

I had no chance to call up
the forgiveness lost in endings
but rather followed any direction

like a cautious fox in steps.

The pines around trap ghosts
they gather round this curious accident

of me alone, slow on foot.

trying to make
something out of nothing

a funeral without a burial
the hard pull of tough bracken
a body of gnarled wood
some damp ash of remorse

so i stop and consider the flat river

people die and turn into stones
and trees and never return, that's all

my pasts queue up
like street cruisers
at a mafia funeral

father, son, ghost, story
i am poured out
or divided like marbles

grainy prints and old letters
hunt me up and down stairs
a socked columbus returns;

all the time i ask if that
is all i will ever manage
this little, this loss, this day

imagined white skin
brittle as a buried plough,
winter stars have dragged

a sheet over poor us;
drifters along white rivers
crack the faces of pools,

cold smiles and frozen steps
throw out false sunlight,
we slide accordingly on glass
to the grace of old water

(for Daniel Philibert)

he is lost, he got lost
your room of milk glass
no longer refracts a ghost;

you are stone, part of a mountain,
eyeless on a cool green bed
unseen and unspoken, now saintly

sparrow-***** and clockwork driven,
you raced with short pace against
the old horse of ice and morning

and the lottery of gravel and slipping;
now I have two weights of good and bad,
two wet eyes, a long look upwards;

sleep over, sleep tight, wait.

the dead are circles of cold wax
torn from stars in glass
they hide behind ears
and hang like children on gates

a bone family on the hunt
wearing clothes that hang like martyrs

they do not benefit from sleep

the torn owl of autumn
hides behind a glass of rain
thin strips of the moon

hang like a tired curtain

behind the black hedge
voices seem serious and muted

we need to be empty to escape

this is now a dump
of shrivel and turn-in
the revenge of late months

the earth is tired
wet as a turned boat

after a battle this ground
is no longer holy
scattered with ribs it is shamed

across the lawn I hear voices
so I touch a found stone
in my pocket, just for me

high over the palatinate
a white of corners
heavy as a wooded hill

a hall of whispers and height
when a milk bride
throws a glance over marble

all wait like a clock
this angular memory of eyes

not the millions you imagine
but each star a stranger
lucky to be alone

in a dark flat sky
you must have been coded
and sent off as a message

here i am wax and darkness
silent in the pulled hours

the light from our window,
a crucifix on the lawn;
in rooms we are heavy as actors
slow as a conscience in twilight
as we created a house with shade

and it might have been we
searched with unstilled eyes
the warm garden lost in shadow

but no, the wind stole our sight.

akimbo by water
the drowned, orange-skinned,
greasy, fail to wave

as I ride on my
dead son's bike over
gravel and charcoal

the shouts of children
brake me to search
but all eyes are empty

lost under my house,
one chair less, a hole,
black teeth chew

at a space in my lungs,
less light through milkglass
means a shifting at table

that sinks bits of night
that hide in corners like steps;
a dull ghost is creeping

in times of moving air.

mean winds press the heather
this lost island sinking in silver
holds huts of sighs

and a fence of tide, wild horses
stray careless between stone and growth

let me be your windbreak, a slight warmth
there is nobody beyond my sight

he has a wonderful speaking voice
she always said when she liked someone on the telly

but she didn´t like our Auntie
who had her teeth done private
although she was a leftie

( she didn't like Auntie Gladys either)

she called Dad's tea a special
to cheer him up when his team lost and

she is sort of still here.

(The cabin;by the stern windows;
Ahab sitting alone,and gazing out.)

fathoms under the salt planks
your walfish waits in tide and ebb
and you are distilled too,

into something like love,
the personal chase of two waves
waiting in the sea, trapped,

his white brow throws a squall,
eight bells, there are holes in the sky;
not yet, not now, next

you are a prisoner in
walls and floors, you drop
unaided from ceilings

the windows in your eyes
are cool and thoughtful

at night you slightly
push doors, or slide
over scented beams,

the wax on cupboards
neatly traces your weightless hands
but you give me no relief
when I am down

My book of poems fails to hide
the space in front of my face.

The window frames the garden.
Das Stillleben. The rain levels
the earth, no longer clotted and rude.

It is time to see the frost washed out.
Dripping glass.Old eyes. Rain.

skidding around corners on a single leg
you escape fat-cat sleep and hide under carpets
behind doors you are hinted at

so when a door hanging like an anchor
sways in the slight breeze of suggestion
my face turns outwards and drags me

to the window; there are lights behind the trees
maybe refugees of love with hot breath
perhaps morning breakers in stiff clothes
but certainly not the water inside my eyes

Look...say the stars
What do you see ?
I thought there was only one
What do you feel ?
Who do you think you are ?
Aton's chair, the holy place
The highest in the sky

Gutted and fake, half man,
Called into line and tainted,
Your cold-birds have fled.
A coughing horse tires at your side.

My steps are out of season,
More a summery walk along banks.
The fox-trails are closed with web,
Lost with intent, the child's first angst
Hides in strikes of green.

Holy Mary Mother of God,
This disclaimer will not help.

a big fat white god
hollows out my warmth
the tracks and steps
follow me, a ship
slowed by frost

like a heavy horse i breath ice
dancing at my door

this while stops
and you are not here

Late in the afternoon
doors seem to close quickly.
Ways break into ochre,
trees black like hours.

Burnt clocks of memory
strike like lazy foxes.
Lazy as a launching swan
my steps falter,

I am a refugee in my own time.
As the light weakens
and the air cools
the pictures peel off like skin
and fall at my feet.

My house of snow
has fallen moons
in its garden.

All these frozen curves
and mounds are
a white woman sleeping.

A swan lifts heavily
over quiet water.
For a moment, all is still.

Then we become those
we have lost
and live their borrowed lives.

Eager necked wrap of linen,
You bag of stones you.
Pasted on, you struggle
Above standing water.

The last one through
The door, saintly headed you
Flap out into the cold.

The last, the lost, we two.

free as
a pod of dolphins
beyond burnt skin
and dancer's steps

out of wire
and glued words
you cut through tides

The Pig's Head

O lard the porcine god
floods our souls,
under beer we bend,

rough backed backed  before
the head that is not cold,
surprised eyes not gentle.

The real one has fled the rain,
steps in mud break our secret.

The tide might remember.
The moon fierce and scolding.

2. Salt

Scour the pits of saline gut,
fish open like a lust cut.
Strain the turf.

The near sea of salt twins
will cool our palms with the
coins of lost waves.

Dumb the salt pulse.

3. The Church Under The Sea

Perfect under the glass ebb
but not silent.

The Bell
calls us back to the church

of tide and sway, to the
sacrement of **** and silt.

Deep we seek our service.

A toenail of a moon,
slightly turkish, hides
in a ***** aquarium

and stops my knees.
We frozen are blind
beyond November.

We dead are actors;
pullers of dogs and leaves,
rootless as the wind.

My grief ? Spooned out...
I halt under the night.

The wind is grey with ice.
Frozen days rot from inside,
leaves are black with silence.
My long hours are unended,
part of me has been stolen at night.

The first snow waits to sweep
down from the blind hills.

as empty as a church at night
lost like a ring at a party
flat as a dutch road

and even if i snot up my cuffs
or flash a big toothy at the world

i will be as forgotten as this poem

Red ringed arms of leather
fail under the hot ring,
wax and feathers

weaken under the low-draft.
You're a shot bird, a soft hit
falling akimbo down to

the green wash, to the salty
glass of impact, a slip through clouds
for a mouth full of tide.

the moon dilutes
and frights brass-warmed stars, the
crab apples of your story

fall, so let me hide you in
a box under sticky earth.
You are eyeless and unsighted;

rain falls like dog's gravel
and all these short days
are scattered and running,

the wind pushes you aside

He is, he is;
The failure not to look
Into his room, his sheets
Cold as milk. Dust creeps.
Not to stop the mantra lips
Of heisdeadnichtwahr ?
The hunt for torn film,
For old winds and dried fruit.
Perhaps the glimpse around the
Next corner, he is, he is.

From my window the night is framed,
The stars thrown between the black.

Darkness turning through after-rain,
Grass that defends its green.

A moon dyed with henna
Falls behind the tree-line.
Frost cold as your hand;
O pull me down to the stones !

Rooks rise into the air
Like dust after a demolition.
An Autumn green with water

Pulls at me like an ignored child.
You are lost behind the Summer
Like spilled wine on a table

You run in chaos through linen.
It is late, and you sleep in the ground.

Open like a split pig
Halved and open-ribbed I

Survey the place between
The firs. Brown growth and

Broken stems, dumb as a
Turning , fail to fill the space

You took, Summer has fallen
Off its ladder and you have left

shrapnel of a black heart
they pick at worm-strings,
pulling out curves from

the green above the sleepers,
like punks they barge and
rotate like bits of children

while I stutter in grief and ice;
bricked in, walled up, dead down.

an old car with rusty brakes,
models, the Eiffel Tower, a zeppelin
combs, a toothbrush, muddy sandals,
posters of sunsets and other better worlds,
a souvenir mug from Venice, an unmade bed,
handwritten notes, letters unanswered,
a ghost that wamnders through my veins

and the present of your life

a maze of strict wood
dark moss that begs for steps
silent and loyal

you birth again the lost
green a half life, rest alone
under the stars

more ever than the cold moon

a chaser of the moon
a hunter of the stars
weightless as a night owl
silent as the dark is long
a builder of boats and planes
clever and wordless within himself..

so when time faults and darkness looms
and sleep evades us in the cold hours
you are here, you are there
so wait for us...you are not lost

the speedphone in your head
sparky and light trailed,
as a dancer with closed steps
you open doors in the night;

sometimes a ghost, a lost thought,
your pages are torn and mixed, you're
burnt as a nut, a failed paperchase
of loose  clues, brillant and wild
running with the comets to dawn

a filtered light strained and old
that hangs over us man crawlers
we are loaded with slow blood
we jaw-jaw over evening circles ;

empty as a watering can in august
up and up the garden, down down
we hammer the green into squares
as we think we may, foolish with dust

a brook of paint and cardboard,
batch of legs , bells and rings
running torso of burnt faces;

teeth and horns, black with hair
spit of the night and cold stars;

they have rented justice with
rhymes that fall like stones

ist des wahr ? ja, wahr ist