These are the hard times,
the long stretch of coal-shed days,
the corrugated nights of the antinomian.

I retch at the old doubts and the panoply
of dustbins clattering bright,
their watchers simian in the morning ****.

I dress as though dredging up greys,
monotone deep in the GB tradition:
now sandpit tea with oil stain floats
silt dreads the mass of a seven year clay.

Four weeks of shadows drown wind in a storm.

And dreams of my cottage
in days of such calm and late summer happiness
as brought cut corn and strawbs
and horse manure in hugs

until like Zulu tribesmen the birds appeared.
Hunched with expectation
Spears smiling like baddies they rushed me.

I woke pouring sweat like a workhorse
the weakest of defences laid up
my face pulling cellophane over French windows.

This is our blitz, puppydog, I said,
dragging him away from the whizzbangs
echoing green and purple off shopfronts.

My Chuchundra scuttled ground-bellied
from fallen ******* bags spilling guts
like casualties of war

and hoodlums tremendous in commando gear
who set off peonies and chrysanthemums
before charging triumphant down alleyways.

We go home.  I’m happy to leave these heroes
the soda from the Catherine wheels,
and the drizzle, for which London has yet to apologise.

Single veteran knuckle,
A bumblebee rapped
against my bathroom window.

With my hand flat against the glass
in recognition of his long tour and fallen kin
he traced to the south the first spring sun,
whereupon a cubit of my sodden hair flamed
with pollen of impossible angles.

qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem*


Bejesus we walked so far!
It was beautiful country, mind,
feet dappling through hedgerows
that led from the city, in silence,
to rest where all flesh shall come.

I remember how it started,
walled in with the others.
Lord you could dance!
How were they to comprehend
that the kink in my arm
and your off-beat jive
could lead us unguided
to narrow pathways forcing single file?

                    By a river we sat together—
amid long words and fingerprints
your skin bled dark with guilt
and for my part I saw coracles
sprout upon your breath.
We weighed down these little craft
with the chains of our sins
and tied fast the bones of our future
as payment for the ferryman.

One day perhaps, the river will dissolve to ash,
revealing our two disciples
discarded as the chance to heal,
                    there will be love
                    like a great and gentle pulse
mingling with cold stones
and memories our
downcast eyes, cheekbones to the fore.

Perhapsingly on Sunday
If the bleak-end hacked for blood
I could take a spin in the old gorevette
Down to Blighton where the vibe is crude,
Where April rolls the coolest blunts
Dreading lilacs and their smoky crud
Of wishfulness. Beyond this extended ketaphor
Only reason spoils the mood.
Having none and wanting more -
A conceit started out so spicely, but finished far from good.
Oh well, I guess. The horror I suppose. The horror.

Drastic measures must be taken to overcome the afternoon lull.
Seventeen obscure hardbound essays to consume, spines flaking
and half-eaten by dustmites. Their goodies
can only be extracted by torture, but my instruments are dulled
by shriekless hours and the fuddy-duddies
beside me, who god help me I’ll never become,
though I’m already bearded, and have started showing some dome.

Time, I think, to give something back:
a single bogie on a lone mission
to retake Stevens’  Noble Rider and the Sound of Words.
A big ask, I reckon, but this mischievous frisson
is deepness: It’ll probably be half, or at least a third
of my life before anyone finds my sleeper, my double agent
Amongst horses shedding their coats for the summer.
I smile at no one in particular, and return to my stack.
Keyboards clatter like rain, drowning out what little glamour
remains of the microfiche, leaping silent
over centuries in a smallish room in the corner.