‪the calm tides of summer filling the bays of your mind‬

‪hills of smiles without a cloud in the sky‬

‪supper upon the lowing of the sun‬

‪dreaming dreaming‬

‪of midnights‬

‪summer‬

‪sunny‬

‪boy‬

childhood 

digging up the hamster

to see the bones 

1958

1958

there i’ve said it

it’s a date 

and when these poems say a date

i try to imagine

all there is to recall 

and all the time i am never sure

but a date is a date set 

and that one and only date sets the mould 

of this or that poem

the poet set it atop of the poem

so it’s important to say the date

the date the date the date

the one and only

there i’ve said it

let’s move on to it

the poem

and forget the date for now

the words will set the date 

and i’ll remember the day i read

it - the date of the poem 

there i’ve said it

12th November 1958

and roy fisher wrote it

package holiday

charon crossing acheron 

book now

the chiseller

the chiseller 

we thought we could science away

the epidemics of don’t mind me

i’m just a little morose today  for

life is ours and we are here to stay 

and all this nature thing a me bob

it bloody well gets in the way

and bugger me - oh i say 

this eulogy

won’t fit on my tombstone

and the chiseller is dead

we’ve missed the bus

‪we’ve missed the bus

the bus stop’s memoir‬

‪was entitled ‘time’s tableau’ ‬

‪it remembers those days when ‬

‪two arrived together‬

‪but ‬

‪is referring now to passengers‬

‪on their way to death’s masked ball‬

‪even the graffiti is faded - for‬

‪what can it say about corvid?‬

‪bugger all and all‬

‪is smeared in tears‬

much later

the setting sun is wrapped 

and taken home