the third of january saw this;

the moon is a stone in the sky
and the night a blanket of holes,
the rain an error of clouds
and the stars a coda of cats;

this day told me;

you are hidden behind your face,
all your words are coded like scripts,
your body is full of lines,
you are paged inside yourself

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

Capri

roofless cubes, spidery with wire,
cakes of azure and enzian;
above at the Villa San Michele
Rilke smiles down at the broken beaches,
coves of defiant waves, compacted sea

Pompeii

a chessboard of honest stones
open to a sky of hushed shouts;
we huddle in a ***** frame
of another life, a stopped day

Napoli

warm and secret, olive-eyed
you make a new face
as we gaze from a bus:
an act of moment

the ants sing in traps
of fallen brown and all
these crazy winds dance
a blind ballet of coded
circles so rain constant
washes us in a dark baptism
when I clutch your hand
I feel small bones under
your skin, light as a bird,
made warm by the running
days, the last summer

Flywheels enamel
with heartblood,
aortal ticks hesitate

before the dull bang
of a fallen fist,
the fat knuckle

of the next hit.
Tick tick the
small ones,

the eaters of dust,
stone-eyed they
fall apart like lost time,

the weights that
regulate all
are unbalanced.

At twentythirtyfour
On the eleventhofseptember
     a neuropathological tracer

Jumped from the box,
Lost poem; a title over rain
    men waving tins at a tractor,

And the later sleeping wihout
Rest; rooms full of waves,
    the ineluctable modality of water.

the wind turns my apple tree
into a victim, a lover banging
on a closed door of gnarled wood

a dance makes this ringing evening
singular, the leaves agree to fall
in the dull faith of  moving air,

they tell us about birth and departure,
about leaving together, about  stories
of ending as the sun arcs and protests

a move of broken glass
black as polished leather,
burnt wood, the big shifter

that trembles steel under us,
the horizon hides, above
a curtain made of holes

with stars around as the
lost language of wind,
howls of salt, tide of night

If you are sad
And full of grump
Then think of a world
Without Donald Trump

Putting words together is a devolution of self;

the soft underwash of sea darkens sand,
a faded sun burns out over rooftops of rain,
a snow train stops in frost under polar stars;

but this is beyond me, over the edge.

my little round sleepers with
lots of coats on, mud huggers
with a tribal bottom,

perfectly lined up at the
bus stop of spring, soft under
the cold loam, a miracle

despite the hidden banality
of numbers, time for tea as
I wait in a cooling garden

not brown grass, not spindle trees
                              nor sloppy suns embrace you,

you sway in a summer hammock,
                              your shape unique,
                              a collection of eyes and glass;

no description ; time has limped to a stop,
                             the hours windless,
                             a girl at quiet under the sky

Step aside, slightly,
                    from a beach beside
                    cold moving water.

A sighting in rain,
                    hooked on a line,
                    empty as a fallen bell,
                    an open window, opaque.

If I am distant to myself
                   I am lost, aware
                   of room, the soft crunch of shingle.

Steps of a known stranger, a shell.

as stopped as the silence after
a crash, you work through
the snow, the pines serious

and watching, you stumble disjointed,
unhealed. The clockwork slows
and suffers the pain of cold water,

for your eyes are shaded in
the ice-light, blue and unforgiving
as the wind gets harsher

the darkness pumps steps
down smoke streets, burning
light features the

cow-eyed, the clamped jaws
and forced laughter of those
with bent souls,

we are past all words, thought
is trapped in brown amber,
the night creeps round each corner

we are burnt inside,
            full of old straw,
            tar and wet ash,

passing trucks lift my hair,
           wash my eyes with diesel

trees and fields behind the stop
           are fenced and grubby,
           they darken,

we are lost in direction
          between two nothings,
          untied to our kin ;

seekers of line and light
          down the way of a savage god,
          the cruel autobahn.

you step like a puzzled *****,
                you sniff at damp bark
                and beds of leaves,

clothed in burnt sticks and smoke,
               your eyes are slanting snow
               wary of ice and shadow;

this falls between us;
               you wait under trees
               or at frozen gates

on evenings when I late home,
              carrying the basket of stones
              you laid at my door

The strandcafe
                   was lined
                   with Hitchcock seagulls

as you looked over
                   your glasses
                   with concern
                   and said

that I did not understand Hegel.

A time ago of rage, and joy and rain.

Anklecut but running;
cornchildren at break,
dust and more dust.

Flight the cutting
of a lost sanctuary,
legless with shock

at life turned upside.
Stubble the blunt cut,
the wait of the expectant
loam, under the farrow.

The threatening nature of
                             artificial objects,
                             not snow dropping from pines,
                             nor windows shattered with frost

but the flight of keys and bells,
                            and all that begs for
                            subtle asides,
                            all that is malevolent for this,

all that falls,
                     that disobeys my hands,
                     those white apes mapped
                     with the views of the Via Dolorosa

all things that make my dry box spin,

my body does not follow me,
                     I often seem to look
                     over my shoulder

at the dark detective of age.

drops of river or ice patches;
all of this without your notice
                but tough and half eternal,

the lemon tree grows
               cool and silent;
               this makes you remain.

rags of cloud top the wind
a dirt of wind turns your face,
arranged,
a pace of cloud dirts your face
the top of wind rags your pace;
the lines, now, for you

your face a pace of rain
the wind a race of dirt

rest among the gentians
                     like an exhausted lover,
                     the road has thrown

you out of track and youth,
                     a line of rescue wakes
                     the rooks in the cold trees,

there is a nest not far away
                     waiting to fall, a pause
                     before the first call, a damp leaf.

the sea the skin of a wet dog,
black the beach; a ruined church,
the coastal lights a string of lesser ways;
we are as empty as a dropped shell
pulled across the ebb, a ripple of salt..

and as the night gets deeper
a dragon breathes like the tide:
no mistake, the dark needs its hours

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

Star to let
to a cat-lover
and friend of

less perfect dahlias,
to putter-outers of
unwashed milk bottles,

to curtain shifters
and spectacle sinkers,
to all those gods

of Victoria's terraces
all waiting for
the flat upstairs.

( for Seamus Heaney)

as if the pale stones
share the warmth
between two sides
sea and field cut
early light and fallen morning
the path weathered and slow.

Anywhere. Evening rain.

Snakes cross the road,
                    that is no longer an obvious place,
                    it cracks like old toffee.

Lost souls in nightgowns and slippers,
                    foam behind wire.
                   A dark tide bids

then waits of a gallery of small heads,
blue eyes devoid of doubt.

A world of broken signs

angular,
behind black,
a suggestion of brick;

the spire moon
shadows the roots
under stars,

slight warmth
of sandstone
and ticking birds,

small movements
between gravestones
and curled brass

a dark box
of stone waiting
for the edge of light

When the night
                 rubs out the horizon
                 and all this black
                 has more the quality of shade

and all the copsed trees
                cluster round sleeping fields
                and buried life waits and looks,

a door in a heap of lived-in-stones opens
               neon turns the cowshed
               into some kind of church.

This is the drained time,
              the false dawn
              that makes the morning man start.

Whirls of wicker and calico,
                 of turf and salt,
                 of cats and fish.

The eyes of those
                 surprised by sudden depths
                 are bitter and open.

They drink sea under the glass
                 of a cracked tide,
                 in green tunnels of waves.

The water children flail under a sea moon.

The sea drags across the dark silt,
                 hear the bell, hear the bells.

As all the pictures
                  speed past;
                  a monochrome classic,

like a flash ***** of stale
                 groups at stage,
                 a round of prospective lookers

as I keyhole in my car, outside
                 this story-telling,
                 all these holes in cloth.

I am aside all this business,
                 all this light snap,
                 the train now lost
                 in the purpose of direction.

More than a lost night,
                   heavy as old cloth,
                   blind as an uncaged wind,

rather a space where all the stars
                  are lower than down,
                  the moon drifts
                  through arcs of frost.

The high masts along the road
                 are crowned with sodium light,
                 a camp like the edge of a prison,
                 a string of cruel pearls.

This is how I suffer
                 from that which I seek,
                 alone in the changed dark.

A night-train passes, but at a distance.

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

Four of stained glass and stars
all leftglance beyond ratio or air,
thin as tissue but strong

as a pastel visa; fated curves
guide your hand,voices drag you
into mud and steal the day.

You leave, but the snow finds you.
                  Cobbles reflect ice and steps.
                  ( The street is the back of a reptile).

You follow the snow,
                  the windows make you a saint,
                  you are in a church.

You are well-wrapped in cloth,
                  you stride with intent,
                  your heart is an unformed pump.

You are a fireplace, now cold and ashen.

A bird has
changed its body,
downgraded to

a requiem of light bones,
a lost map of flight,
a throw of crashed feathers.

Black as old water,
empty as a gutted fish,
still as a prayer,

skinless as the
crashed sky,
eyeless with dismay.

a wind of old nails
             broken stones
the sky a guilt of rain
all these stunted trees
             grasp over wet moss
seagulls are unborn children
that cry over the tundra
this is the end of a measured world
this is the e nd ofa mea sured wor ld

An apple split
by my own thumbs,
a removal man.

You are an ebb
distant, a rustle of waves,
an upflight of birds,
migrant in ice.

When you cross the road
to your car, twenty years
and more fall from me,
this is a closure in dull light.
Winter's tale.

Looking over the pale fields
and old woods, I recognise
                          this can not be
                          the consequence of birth,

more a late push under winter mud,
as if I am as thin as cardboard,
                          one of no depth,
                          desolate as sleet.

open door ; icewall
                   crusted as a rabid eye
                   all the change of skin in frost
                   a bedouin of snow,

consider the end;
                  white room; stiff starch
                  the soft slide of slippers
                  along linoleum

winter's partner ; a slower cold

What is left if nothing's left ?
The tap loses teeth-blood,
Each empty cup smiles with malice.

We have fallen over the fence,
Our pictures torn, a history in bags,
We walk like a cluster of wraiths

As dull legs trudge over stones.
The old will wither with frost
When the night comes sooner.

And if the children cry in the night
There is nothing more to say
Than that the stars are hungry too.

So when the moon
                draws the tide
                you crawl into yourself,

your eyes close like
               a wet umbrella,
               the tension in your face

slacks, the wind cools;
              your breath flows
              steady under the sea;

the stars slip into the dark, the waves

The tyrannic moan of the refuse truck;
the granite of the rook's caw,

the windows suffer under sleet.

The street is lighted yellow ;
for the survivors, the last ones.

Your breath is soft beside me,
each pause fills the darkness.

Dream I am better than I am,
the night's follower, the undecided.

dog-eyed shape of ash,
                 an owl leaving
                 the cool firs;

shadow of shadow;
                floorboards creaking,
                a curtain's slight dance;

black and white as my own;
                standing in frills in a snap
                in front of a Ford Prefect
                with Dad before the war.

An index of first growth,
                 bound in curled leaf,
                 a glossary of shadow

over the deep cruched floor
                of cone and splinter, of spruce.
                Coda ; the glass

of silence is often broken.
                lost words seek
                the brown narrative of winter,

the best time
              to read the trees, the text.

Early darkness; as oil we drip
Through the heart's engine,
In black; lemon- faced we
               shadow the next.

We hesitate with tears and
Stutter over earth; arms linked,
              distant and cool

To scare a circle of crows
And a falling steeple; music and
Words that break the shocked ring,
             for that is all.

When the early mist
rolls down the Inntal
                   and tired rain
                   hits the early window

and speaks in a broken voice,
splashes like tyres on tarmac

your small engine of breath
strectches under trapped linen
                  you are closed
                  and distant.

Late Autumn. Time for frost.

a lost girl arranges in her room
                 her dress, with stillness,
                 she pushes her tongue
                 against small kitten teeth

outside the lift groans and bangs,
                lights burn shapes
                of flats and stairs;

this is a place to circle in,
                to return to,
                never to leave,

she is sediment, a line of ash,
                a failed escapee .

unholy earth, dark with stein,
unformed loam at birth;
a worded child of mud;

fingernail skinned blacklack eyes
peek out of a ball of wet slam,
a groundling that waves like a black branch

across the sleeping fields,
see a shadow under the cold grass,
near in sight under a crust of frost.