Alone in a crowded room
                she whispers through
                her sharp cat's teeth

*count the rest of your life
in days you do the same things.
Imagine a space in the air
where I will never be

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.

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

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 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

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

stepping at the sun
with written ankles
our lips divided

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

As fingers stretch into the lesser known
                   slate slides into salt,
                   we are stranded in an half life
                   of stone that rolls down ice.

Mist forces us apart,
                  the rain makes us temporal,
                  the sky is as pale as a bloodless girl
                  forcing our steps to quicken.

The North tells me,
                 this is a leaving on a seagull's flight,
                 steps on an artic bridge,
                 a change of tides, and at last,
                 the rain of ending.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Let me be a casement
that you open when
you look out of a window or
a sill full of warm moss
to rest your hands upon.

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

a cold moon, but
ten winters ago
it was encased in more ice;
the stars roll out
of a dark nest,

we slip with care
through snow,
down to the road,
we watch the ghosts pass,
there might be snow foxes
in the lost copse,
careless with cold

a basin of white chipped enamel
tips the wash over the pale streets;
lights appear in the random order

of secret intent, confused stars in
an untidy sky light the northern stone;
hours slip behind  a rook's shadow

as a rain curtain falls : we sigh with
routine,we are waiting for a small, clean death,
trapped between the sun and the moon

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

traces of snow, black earth, roots
of devils hands that grasp at frost,
walls stenciled with cold growth,

a far dog coughs open a winter sunday
but we are scared to peek under the crust,
so we tick and turn, waiting for

a dark better than this, come soon...
the light of your eyes has become
pale and diffuse, here and longer in ice

the night is the black down of a yearling
this sky a taunt of trailed stars
Let me spin in a frosty lane,
                     head back,
                     too fast to count
and throw the dark to ground

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.

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

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.

Old is the small of lavender,
washed faces, the dust brown
of waxed furniture, bouquets

of veined hands that hide pearls
in indian boxes, alongside cameras
that fled across years, heavy-eyed ;

then there is you, the way you change,
you are half of these years, not just
the ebb, but a wave never slight.

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

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

a small girl serious cycles
determined down a lane,
two crows flood over
a dark meadow, slight, fast,
and a cold rock filled
with gassers and haters
rolls round the sun;
good reasons to deny
this iced and distant ball.

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.

d the close triangle, with a small japanese bridge,
then the longjob c, stretching like a rained web,
e? a family with one son running to heaven,
f the big car, heavy with chrome, then g that
opens like a cool river tide, a an honest man
half a hand, b the closed room that locks you up..

these are my friends that will never wane..

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.

rain drinks my sight and makes my face the sea, i
am falling apart like a wet newspaper, this is not
friendly water landing in tin bucket on an autumn
evening when the lights outside flow too, this is
beyond cleaning and baptism, this might be the
end of the world, and so it should be.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.