autumnsun the soft light close
bloom-in-falling yellow choice
damp the day each circle ending
fade the sky as eyes smile tight

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.

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.

autumn rain is akin to black tea
the burnt yellow of old growth watered

a train shakes the fields, an old carpet snapping
birds shoot holes in the turbulent sky ;
the world is split like an apple,
your head inside a bell

when it is over it is not over,
the air hums with steel,
too many eyes are in the undergrowth.
evening's calm as brittle as toffee;
shocked from coal and smoke,
a heartbreath along rails

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

stepping at the sun
with written ankles
our lips divided

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

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)

a giddy wainscot, a torn curtain
that big-flowered raises the dust
you left stern-legged this place

and left me at a broken window
so please do not turn around

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.

tracks and rain
the leaving

leaving and rain
the track that takes you
now in winter

a winter of leavings

a rain of tracks
now the rain
the rain

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.

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

an animal in my fireroom,
amen of charcoal and dance,
a borrowed sun glowing like want

then cold as far hills,
lost the engine of passion's eye,
heart's turn, lost dark love

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

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.

the back of a mirror,
leaves turn into flames
and after the walking

you shake your coat like a wet dog;

the rain waters your smile,
you trail autumn into the hall

from outside a nest of light
warm with steam and quilt
and slippers worn with steps;
a kitchen ship and dad crunching

when I think of this
i nearly say i miss you

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

A girl with red hair sits in a cafe. She writes a letter, then pauses to tap her pen against a coffee cup. She sighs and then pushes her hair away from her forehead, then glances over the tables.By chance, her eyes meet,as if she is looking for help.

The next day. Sie is reading Heidegger and looks very alone. All this might be conceived coincidence.The cafe smells of damp coats and steam. I move my chair slightly to look at her. She pretends not to notice.

A week later. She is no longer here, but her removed presence warms the near pathological emptiness of the cafe. Outside I see commuters sheeping towards the station, and more life gets lost in sleet. I hope to see her again, but she has gone.

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.

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

trump, um, um
do no ald, trrr
umph ! umph !
trump...****, ****

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.

(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.

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.

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

(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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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