truncated
around that hollow centre
the tree’s trunk knows of
the sap’s long climb from the
roots that tongue the rain
that leach the mire’s wine
how
that hollow centre burned
all the way with soot
and still the sap smiles
however many miles it climbs
how
that hollow centre is a weight
off its mind
the outermost circle
a cooper’s band that barrels
the wood of a tree’s demise
to hold enough time for
a forest to grow a familiarity
ah grasshopper
and the child
weighing life in the palm of it’s balance
kills it
and thereby perceives some knowledge
of death’s life
will store the length of that silent remorse
in some locked box
in some back drawer of time
and then
in due course
will open that regret and learn
that the time for sorry
has run out time
and that will unbalance you
will kill the life out of you
and some other child will call you
grandpa grandpa look
a grasshopper
repeat after me repeat
the snow is falling
cherry blossom is falling
the leaves are falling
repeat and me after repeat
damask
along a long dusk of an ivory sky
along the long-dead of a day’s hours
weeping into the bare trees deepening
deeper deeper until suddenly
a single candle pierces an eye
a shriek shears a ear
deeper deafens and then the
silence
of an afterglow that succumbs to
the pinkest pinkness in the blackest trees
and how the window reflects our inside out
into the dark insolvency where an imposter
sky smoulders high in the dark tips
of the toppest-most disbelief that
the sun’s death has surely dyed it all
before it too dies and at that thought
both of us stare in disbelief
cut!
it’s a wrap!
🎬
latterly
it is not wet but moist
in this doorway kiss and wait
and hope the night bus is just a
little bit late
just a bit longer
just a little bit
the night holds the rain tight
a little bit tighter this
so long kiss
if you please that will be just fine
the morning looks monotonously damp
the more so in the light that refuses to go
no further than the mist on the distant tree
hanging me
sitting here writing slowly the word slowly as slowly
coffee time approaches and recedes with
every monotonous breath this empty feeling
demands a wholemeal scone and clotted cream
and damn me jam has percolated the gloom
a coffee morning is blowing through the trees
and if you please
a black coffee will be just fine
just fine
my god the maggots’
my god the maggots’
debridement
across the severn bridge
seven maggots (or more)
sucked at the mud at
the liver’s low water all along
this artery at the celtic fringe
of healing like eels on heels
sad they will never fly as high
as you will soar above
the mountains of your recovery
where’s a question now
where do the birds go
to die
where are the funerals
for the dead birds
where are their graves
come back my sweetheart
come back over the hill
for the lark is ascending
sit here with me
a poem for RS Thomas
we return again
and again he beckons us
sit with me and wonder
how dark the darkness can be
and me
he asks of you
how dark are my thoughts
that try to illuminate the darkness
in you and me
i sit with you
for you are all I have
i say he says
oh my love
i write poetry
no
not poems
but the word poetry
and the word is a poem in itself
don’t you think
it’s better not to
think
but to enjoy the process
of submitting to a higher
calling that all poets
call poetry
no
not the word
but the process
that is
my love
evolving door
revolving door
who is the follower
who is following
before or after meeting
their smiles are they
arriving or departing
or just passing by
dear reader
i wrote a poem
and i want to say to you
right now
that
this poem is saying
this or that
but now i am not too sure
what it is saying
what is it saying
you tell me
oh my word
oh
my word
your words
we all have them
waiting in the queue
for the mason to incise
upon the tablets of stone
the chips of which we carry
as our shoulder’s evil whisperer
this is not your fault it is the
reader’s own shallowness
refusing the starlight
refusing to adjust
to just another
one word
eh
