Remark on the Air

It’s a clear night, mid October, and the first real cold

has fallen around the city; the air I spoke of, clear,

quiet species presents itself. Forty four windows 

faced ours, and our lamplight signed the divide.

Communiqué

By its very power

shame divulges 

in return its whole

truth obvious to see

yet full relate

drove you down to the beach

that it was enough, sunk

to freeze out

put simply the body

feels now

just now it wants to come undone, annihilate

its wholesale special 

interest which stands for addiction. 

Steady than below

unnamed, became the local

fictions. You told you that. 

Close to the chest. 

Now, 45.7°F seems 

inviting from this chair

alone, the lesson

you should not divulge everything. Quiet  

goes the way,

back to the open car and cast away. 

Some things deep in

are for the hut. 

You're performing

privacy for a feed

that will never come out of the box

is love giving up this too

too commensurate and

if the sun rises again, when

the speech in defence draws

out its obvious face you,

you learn to concede, go back then,

I think, to the grim quiet

part life without imposition.

This must be far

from all that ever would

you expect to have to live...

I could make an excuse here:

I was so tired, thoughtless,

but the crest of the wave 

was falling.

Here in this ridiculous list 

the one about your head 

whatever reach 

this back in her compression

maxed out. Duty,

in the end, and here it is. 

ReplyForward

Poem, 8th February 2023

There’s something I’ve been trying to access
a particular point in feeling. There’s the difficulty.

It’s attached to conditions at points 

along the curvature. Words when they come 

stare him straight in the face, as if he were the centre 

though perhaps he was the background 

the music falls on. He was the kind of man 

you would follow into the loss of return. 

You would not. Only a clod would enter that trail 

but I get to see them: My own footprints in the rain 

spilling out nonsense en route to the City. 

Next there’s the door salesman that took out the rest of your life

people said you’re not in danger, passing through 

the phased exit. Listen, Fauntleroy, you can pay me back 

whenever, the next mass suicide event 

you had blood pissing down my arms. We were so unwell. 

In the shop window there was a model of a skeleton 

for anyone that needed to get a skeleton. 

The crosshairs moved away so locate it again. 

On the wall behind The Duke we were frozen

puppies forbidden lightness kissing 

in this aubade simply gorgeous friendship;

you’d seen the sun up, robin. I had not. 

In the ABBA café life prevailed. One hundred years ago 

the boundaries raced beyond this station, 

The Regency estate blunted to the west with brickwork 

and a road, a wide, gaunt road to the institutions.

So it’s time to turn away once more 

to the corner feeling almost complete 

obliteration and how stupid again to be that way moved. 

All the while he stood there developing a doctrine, 

soap products, card games, asking for everything I shouldn’t have 

had for free. Somewhere else for now, a little way off 

west on the beach at high tide (the mast of the wreck 

twitching in the drink) you won’t want to do this anymore, 

you said, in a year or so, and there it fired up

the flickering tongue that takes you down to the Sanctuary, 

how old, I’m in the same place and have moved 

and remained the present tense folded, stupid 

to the pressure you’re inside it: A different kind of risk. 

 

In the Spirit of the Time...

 

Night View on The Hard

First, there’s a single light, 

then a pleiades alone deep in 

the dark but the focus lightens

and it’s reflected on a lifebelt 

and the mooring figures gathered 

at the edge of what you know, is the dark 

water freezing sodium, sky, come here 

to the inlet look what is it empties 

and fills, passion, but obsession 

a sense of the slump in the night 

little shapes dormant carriers, 

but obsession, it returns predictable 

as leather in the backbone 

quiet fixation ruled by the the order

look out, back to the finish that night 

mooring a loose square into focus.

Poem - 05.01.2023

Steady the snow isolate

gorgeous through the blood

to see how far

how close we could come

North Street

I am given to think of

you there one house 

and roofs over and over

most if not all

that does not claim to warm

the tender sirens through the blood

dry stone.

Somewhere north of here there is a Hill. 

The moment 

has been prepared for.

Chapter House

to be trained sick with doubt
put you across

to the, unpleasant, matter 
of naming, and she became

bright by day by day eating
forgetting to pray, but to seek out hearts
was enough, became too clear

sky above troubled
ever so
evensong, lectures on the common law

broadcast for radio forget

them too, not being unkind
but die than be that ministry. 

...

heavy rain from the west
hammered the window.

Clear sky, it means
are you managing to rest? Is the pain a little
quelled? I would have said 

I will come to you soon
it is impossible

a very few streets over
it is my job to 

help you through 

the city is closed.