Clear sapphire night
Shock of lilac scent
Thick, mesmeric
Milk moon rose yestereve
Perigee, gigantic
And you returned today while
Almond petals browned
In gutter drifts
Elder blossom opened
Nodding stems, white disks
And you took my breath away
The lilac scent, the blue night
The flutter of the spring breeze
And the sunset skyline's dying light.

You saw with the one eye of Woden
Brows of garnet from a world away
Precious helm of echoes
Channeling your gods
Iron dome dragons snarled
Head to head then lay
Beneath fitful clouds and
Verdant sods
No clash or clang that day
From the smithies
Headwinds ruffled river and sward
Up from the river, sweat and toil
Up they dragged the ship from the water
Up to a final resting place then
Down in the soil with the
Gold and the garnets
Down into the acid earth
Down you were rendered
To a slop in the cleft
To nothing more than a stain
In the sand
Digging may have punctured your dreams
Activity on the landscape
Careful scraping and dusting exposed
A riveting find in the sandscape
Shadow ship of a shadow world
Where figures were seen among the hoos
Bodiless phantoms, men of old
Still on guard, holding vigil over
Gold and garnets and echo helm
Wingspread dragon across its face
Under the knoll in the river breeze
Line of Wuffa, blood of the Geats
Are you trapped in time on the other side
Do you linger with your lyre and gold
Are you gazing across the fenland rivers
Or are you looking down, bretwalda
From your version of Valhalla.

Magpie cursed, flew right over me and
Threw her shadow for me to cross
The sun was almost as warm as summer
But had bronzed the leaves that lay on the grass
The guelder had dropped its honey-hued berries
Breeze dislodged beech mast that clicked on the pavement
And the sun sank so early that evening and lit
The sycamores in their reddening raiment.

Engine pulled in, steam, misty night
The platform would crust over with ice
Hard white shell like that over
Secrets, over deceit, over minds
Your mind, so you gulped down liquor
To drown out the lies
And the engine stood ticking,
Hard shape in the night.

And I thought of you in
That bit at the end, the waiting
The wasting, the downfall to death
Upcoming confirmation of
What is beyond that plunge to the depth
Time was too short to finish your work
And you stepped through into another world
And the clock was ticking
Away in the night

Do you know I looked for your bloodline
Cold skies of spring, long journey
Black building before me, breeze off the sea
Your spirit danced and it summoned me
And I am still mesmerised by your words
They cannot be unseen, unknown or unheard
From out of your darkness you spoke of light
As time ticked away the
Last gasp of your life.

We are the silence
Of the setting sun, vast glow
Sinking west, enormous
Power of such intensity
We are the raucous clamour
Death tumult, tumbling
Harsh-cried then in an eyeblink
Back to silence while
We watch and listen
Inky eyed, pitch attired
Feathers preened, a glisten
We are the reporters
We tell all, we fall
We glide, see all
We are the force of sight
Record all, coverage total
We are the force of night -
Midwinter night
Power raw
Savage or serene
Dark, soul to wing-tip
We are the force of death
And foreboding
We are Huginn and Muninn
The Ravens of Odin

Royal blue deepening
Velvet drift, sky robe
White moon gliding, glowing
Pinned tight, night's brooch
Trees black, still as cut-outs
Unreal sense
Of something's approach
All festooned in magic
And the brooch is smiling
Tempting the future
Rolling like a die and
Laughing at fate
Indoors has broken out in chaos
I just silently stand in the corner
And wait.

I have not come all this way to harm you
But only to reach for your mind
To fold you in and lock you down
And bend you back to purpose.
I was sent to find your deadringer's face
For I know you heard his call
I know his words marked you
Eternally as one of his own.
You heard his voice swell like the waves of the ocean,
Or a field of corn thrashed by a storm
It had the power to reach across time and seas
Cerebral ****** of ire and unease
And into this cold, forbidding place,
From beyond the grave he sent you his face
You lift your gaze like a demigod
Oh, yes, you know who you remind me of.