The road is bare
The path is steep
The wood is thick and vast

The midnight air
Which haunts your sleep;
The moon is rising fast.

All through the night
Strange creatures dance
And cast in you their spell

In their dark light
You lie entranced
In woods you once knew well.

You visit her
You know she's wise,
You know she'll set you free.

And undeterred
Beneath her eyes
Regard: her pain you see.

She reaches out
Her hand takes yours
Her head turns to the north

From round about
Voices implore
They plead, they babble forth.

You're scared, and yet
You know her way
In harshness she is kind

You don't regret
The light of day
That you have left behind.

You join her in
Her secret place
She loves you, yet says no

You can't begin
You cannot trace
The path no man can go.

For in her den
Such secrets lie
That she just has to keep

For all such men
Who come to try
This river runs too deep.

And so she hides
Herself away
From you and from the world

Does not confide,
For there's no way
To own this gypsy girl.

It seems like only yesterday
That the first lambs of spring
Were running, bleating, over the fields.
Perhaps it was. Perhaps it was.
As seasons rush relentlessly
Down tracks that may, or may not
Lead to hell, the dogs of hell
Are barking: Can you hear their demon cry?
They cry as one: wolves undone,
The hounds let down their hair.
The night turns to day and
The summer to winter. The winter to spring.
A pin drops: does a mouse
Hear it with an ear attuned to silence?
Or does it crouch oblivious,
Awaiting scraps and scrapes, cats and shapes
That shadow its every move
Along the wall? Whilst standing tall,
The ruthless dance: a dervish trance
Has them in its dreadful spell
And with its whirling wisdom
Leads them down to burning hell.
And us as well.
And us as well.

the baby next door and i sob in unison;
he because he has felt such love in his small world
and he wants it with him
all the time;
and i because my world is bigger,
and i know that there is too much world,
and too little love.

The hair falls, blonde and long:
A cherished doll. Birdsong
Echoes through the dale, as
Twilight casts its gaze and vixens wail.
Sparks driven out as spikes driven in
Places gone, things untold; people she's been.
An openness: the silky vapour
Evaporates, yet cannot escape her
Cocoa eyes, wide as the day they met.
He sees her yet. He hears her yet.
Though she says no words, casts a glance
Over her shoulder, flying askance
Ringlets quiver in the breeze,
Yet in the shadow of the trees,
No man appears. And yet she hears
A pheasant's cry: the yellowest canary
Its song a desperate scream, contrary
Muntjacs dance with target tails,
But the *****, ever hidden, wails.

"i shall bring you stars," she said
and she did
but the pleasure of her company
shone so bright that
it eclipsed them all.

grass spinning by the window of the car
whipping round and round
round and round
far above my head.

a memory like an oil painting
the first time i saw evil
shining from someone's eyes
like a beacon.

running, packing, running
as the roof came crashing down
the insects gathered, parasitic
on the shell of their burnt-out home.

thirteen snails and i
making a journey
oblivious to how it would shape the course
of our lives.

they're blue eyes, not brown
you're wrong
how do you know?
my answer rocked the very sky.

crawling pathetically
dragging my exhausted self across the grey
like some kind of bizarre slow worm
a leech on my own house.

the swooping, the draining, the sepia walls
it was the fault of the beads, of course
of me, and of her
for giving them.

seeing her slumped on the floor
dressed in glass
with crimson make-up
shivering in my nightclothes
as the dogs howled behind.

he had fuzzy caterpillar eyebrows
and the evillest laugh i ever heard
his wife gave me a sink
and signalled to keep quiet.

soon i learned
not to trust items with censored details:
boarded-up windows, blacked-out vans and
chained-up rooms.

soon i learned
so many things

A regal nose leads down to luscious lips
A tiny waist yields to imperial hips
The wasp-like figure zips past, fairy-fast
And leaves him dangling in her wake, aghast.

"Like young deer on the mountain-top" says he,
"They rise and fall as shivers come to me.
They rack my soul with conquests sweet as wine,
And raise me up to lofty heights sublime."

She smiles gently; wrens tap tiny dance
Upon her gaze, he looks and finds his trance
Her eyes as blackened hazel, all afire
With love and lust and mirrors of desire.

He reaches out his hand to touch her own
As skin grasps pastel flesh, lets out a moan
As softly she caresses him so light,
Then disappears into the dark of night.