Poems
Works in Progress
For The Days
We grow inside houses, and remember each spring
how it seeped through the flooring -
bringing such thoughts, a cracking of dust -
the air will change, even now, as we lie
all bound in to our notional seasons,
fading grasses, and reasons to leave.
Clamber at the windows, catch sight of
woodsmoke, the tricks of trees, language held
in breathing bowls. Hammering, and
a child’s laughter cuts through old years.
These clocks, they do things you wouldn’t believe -
bringing such thoughts, a cracking of dust -
in places, the snows have already come
falling with the precision of needles.
Schooling
Thinking back, I couldn’t see
how God shaped England – he was
just a character on a screen somewhere,
barely even watched by me.
Something foreign,
for the birds,
certainly too far away.
Those days, I paced
in smaller shoes, kicking up hours,
kicking off at school –
hesitantly praying some early developer
would be nudged my way
by unseen hands, slipping beneath
lock-tight waistbands that guarded the gap
between what I knew, and that
which I mapped out nightly, kneeling.
Much later I developed feelings,
and as my hands were not yet ruined
I wrote with pen and ink –
yet, no deity delivered
though somehow I still sought
a tossed-off thought I’d had at seven
Perfection awaits,
all jelly-smudged lenses, belief in heaven
brought via rings and playground glances
that somehow develop into
a slow-panning glossed eternity.
We bury disappointment beneath abandonment of faith –
after all, we grow out of shoes
and countries
painfully fast.
Fracture
Your hair changed with the seasons, falling
straight with the scent of ammonia and
the tangles teased each morning in your
pointless set of rituals. Those days
it happened to be red, but never mind -
Spring was on its way.
It was days after the operation -
I traced the stitches where I’d kissed,
and began to beg to be let in. You
barely twitched the sheets aside, and
tried your hardest not to move your head
or make any kind of sound.
Slowly We Have Let Slip
Slowly we have let slip
through rains and rivulets, hands
which traced old eyes on sands
that traversed old seas
crawling with little Jonahs
warm within great bellies
who, once saved, once coughed
and gasping beg
to be tossed back under
to gulp back faith inside
some evil-smelling womb -
all pulped pages, numbered days
krill and mothers who
bring forth the years
in the shape of wet seasons
still – time dives and bellows,
breaches, yet this morning
the waves brought only water.