the old man reads the newspaper
on top of the sand dune of news,
his feet ~ two, up, one, back,
on his perspective
of things past, when caring meant
something was going to change, and
his viewpoint could change and
could change something;
now
his sigh passes over all,
stirring in the shade the crepitations
of the fallen leaves of a broadsheet;
cold the news but hot sipped the tea.
and me?
well, i looked out of the window,
so as not to intrude.
at the beating of our capitulation
turning for help we found
the poem was merely a mirror
no more than no more
so we smashed it
licked at the silver sinews
and spoke in bloody tongues
corked in the swallowing
bloodshot eyes staring retort
we throttled their fisted throats
stamped the impression that we had won
but the words reassembled
mercurially re-globulating
the poem shivered at its newness
its fragility burnishing its finality
how the insane laughed and laughed
at this
at the beating of our capitulation
for when i no longer exist
is death waiting there somewhere out there in time
or does it arrive when you end
that there is no death waiting out there in time
but it is the unraveling travelling of time
(itself a concept of the living)
that death (not surprisingly) resides in the act of living
that your end places you at that time
the time of another’s foreboding
of course we see it as being outside
out there waiting for the queue to
reach its time
but all the time - look out! is inside you
it is creeping up on you on tip toe
and then it is too late i was going to say
but YOU have to say that don’t you
for i no longer exist
po ahem
couplets
so it must be a poem
stumbling says
as mumbling stares
where angels fear to tread
in twos we too enter into
the spirit of the thing
but couplets begat
the form poems
and redacted we drew the line
look kiddo
let’s call it by another name
"try to pee"
a flood of laughter
they’re taking the piss
well
let them put it into words
let the ire fire
let the angst run free
just don’t call it poetry
text it to me
your sin text to me
text it now
there’s an app for that
a
sepia
grainy
blurred
photo -
grapher
where are you now
dead i suppose
snapped
it
was
not
in those days it was a science
i see my selfie
and chose
sepia
grainy
blur
but science it is not
it is just another shot
in the dark
but i still recall your photograph
look
i have a snap of it here ...
A reply on Twitter to a poet in torment
It is a rare gift this blinding light.
The rainbows in the bouncing cataracts of your mind
are driven by torrents of meltwater.
Are not falls, your falls, the falls uplifting?
Are not the torments driven by impatience?
Hesitation fatal.
Rip open the gift - look, see.
How mad is that?
Are
~
talking on twitter
of all the deaths that could have been
of all the childhood risks to life unseen
to have survived is to say to you
i did not know but i do know now
that fate said meet me at the gate
and bring her close before too late
and we’ll walk a while
and with a smile
forget regret
for
the museum has many wings
and many glass cases for many things
and dark corners that we turn and turn
we know them all and yet we learn
that ghosts have ghosts and we are are one
and the same goes on and on
in
the inestimable value of nothing in particular
that invaluable something
when isn’t becomes is
lost
a summer morning at tor bay
falling
this path engrossed in all of its rapture
over primroses under the headiness of gorse
of the morning warming to a basking lizard
may blossom in profusion across a blue sky
the drying of the grasses
it is heaven ~ it is
to be here
above the bay
or our footsteps sinking in the wet sand
of a falling tide
oh my oh my
all that need be said of today
warmth in all of its many guises
falling
falling
that field beside the road
it was just a road
that passed a field
along with a tree or two
it meant the world to you
on a summer day
when the grasses sway
as the flies do
what the flowers do
and you and me
sat quietly
in that field
beside the road
that morning
over the primroses and the headiness of gorse
a morning sun is warming a basking lizard under
the charm of the may blossom crossing a blue sky
almost blue-bagging your mind in the starched collars
studded with gold over the woollen vest of drying grasses
dew it is heaven here above the bay on a day like no other
can ever be again.
interlocutors
to be your very interlocutor
to lead them a merry dance
to claim before you came
this was my very name
for my name was interlocutor
and that was not by chance
so take
the happy from the happenstance
now here is your very chance
to take the art from artifice
and lead them a merry dance
and place before the world
what was not there before
for before it was there
you were there and more
to the point we were too
and we were so ...
how do you say it ...
interloculated
now gerra way with you
sizzled
the mouse in the toaster
blew the fuse of blue and smoke
ooo it was no joke
like herpes zoster
it was very very tricky
but it was a true story
glory me but nevertheless
we ate bread and gory jam
damn and sticky what a mess
were the charred remains of micky
kerrrpow!
open the door to the under-brain
it’s a Pandora’s box
try to close it
and you’ll find it no longer fits
it’s unhinged
a screw loose
stand back
the poet is at large
in a cape of the rainbowed sky
i can name them all
all the fisted flowers
taken home to mam
lilacs
snow on the mountain
golden rods
in the winter
the biggest ~ hugest ~ icicle
you have ever seen
so cold
i can name them all
but i cannot see my mam
i can see the flowers
still in my fist
but
the necroromancers
how commonplace is this sadness
fingernail imprints on the plastic covers
the smudged ink of the return by date
stamped and stacked
the dreams back on their shelves
all those damp pinafore hems that wince
on the edges of the towns of desire
hanging by the thread of maybe
we are many things
~ but not dead ~
when we are dead
we are nothing again
~ but then again ~
you might breathe me
although i cannot breathe you
i have said many things
~ perhaps too many ~
at my last gasp
i knew everything
~ was nothing ~
on reading Rhona’s poem
wasn’t going to read this
i dislike ‘form’ poems
read a few lines
returned to it three times
then i sank beneath the waves
crying my eyes out
the indifferent sea
closed over me
there it said
it is said
unrest
Swansea a one ‘skyscraper’ city
pity
Dylan’s upraised finger did not point
his fag pen’s thought
about the below town’s wrangling
around the ruins of a missed opportunity
after the war between grass and concrete
what oscillations can words describe
that a laugh cannot smear
the pupa’s pupil
metamorphosed
into a poet
such a brief dance
for
there is no way back
mate
dance dance in the midday sun
the stage is set
and yet and yet
say it
go on - say it
tweet now?
they ask
salt n vin’gar?
they ask
off i go
scalded fingers
chuffing on the breath
of an impatient chip
burnt in the memory
of two puff puffing cheeks
oh such a night as this
was
DAYS OF VERSE
they flutter like butterflies in a forest of glade
up along a sunbeam and they are gone
either side the dark is depth
the rubbed eyes of disbelief hover there
like the celandine between the gravestones
before we turn away with our net
the jam jar of childhood empty
but full of hope
humanely?
the dogs were humanely destroyed
they said
yet we ‘succumb’ to an illness
after putting up a ‘brave fight’
no complaints for tomorrow
for
the disease never destroys us
humanely or otherwise
we pass
away with you man
call a spade a bloody shovel
what made us what we were
the structures and the sinews
are destroyed by death
destroyed - destroyed!
to feed the multitudes
who say
quite humanely and genuinely
thank you
for this in the morsel of your passing
We walked to Whitford Point.
April 2021 and the spring tide was fooling with us.
The marsh from Cwm Ivy to Landimore was a sea.
When we left the lighthouse sitting like the horses knee deep
in the receding tide, the marsh was a face pocked with its draining.
Through the breached sea wall the sea had ripped in both directions,
and now lay satisfied and low. The mud had claimed the driftwood,
the fences and the ripples. All was apocalyptic in the going,
but the returning again and again drew us like the tides.
LOIME WE CALL IT
reading your poem
we tilt at the anger at anguish
the grit in the oyster is a tear
loime we call it
although such a word does not exist
we call it loime
for the pearls are puerile
too sweet and uniform strung
here is the prised clam
the cockle-less cockle shell
unhinged
filter feeding on your words
the sting of the tentacles
of so many thoughts redacted
below the tideline the wait is diurnal
again and again the tears of your grit
loime we call it
what do you call it
if anything
do you recall
transfuse me with a poem
positive or negative
match or mismatch
the clotting factor
or the factor of a clot
lance my veins
let me exsanguinate
follow my stream of
bloody thought
break my heart or
mend the arrhythmia
when i miss a data beat
beat me and cry live
live live
winding down
way above the incessant sea
i am talking to a robin
when the celandines close
along the path of the sun
a long walk nears its end
masked
they held the secret of promise
even in this crowded room
you would know that it was me
and you would know what i was thinking
when all about you the people swirled
that are no longer there
for in reality they are no longer there
when you spin in your mask with me
pebbles
the sea my psychiatrist
hands me pebbles to word
to worm on the warm stones
secret thoughts
to fling into the deep
all my worries and my loves
the sea has many pebbles
i have many thoughts
TODAY
the plans for the day settle
in a sort-of-perhaps order
high springtide is at ten so
we might see the marsh in flood
coffee and lunch on walls to be discovered
only our bums will tell which ones
comfortable with our plans
we shuffle off