ENUECH

Exeunt! Exeunt! We go out 

From the lights and mechanical traps

Beneath the emerald glow of exits

Into the blue white desert 

Where in the tides of sand 

Stood the inverse Moses, fat

Pale, mottled black with blood

In the thrum of flies, you

Could hardly hear his weep

Of 'follow me' sob 'follow me'

All this sand the ground up tooth

And bone and hair of the first borns

We stood and watched and smoked

In my suit the air, a thick somber grime

Did not affect me; we all so bland

Tiny within the fizzing glass 

My nose blocked, tongue cut out
Tough to say but easy to hear

Even in truth, the act was no good 

GLOAM ON THE FENS

Your old red door

    Banging in the evening wind

Who set the birds off

    Making all that fuss

Your lover last night

    Just bathed in the rain

He had that teethy shine

    Of silver cutlery

     Stabbed in the mud

What you do is 

     What you do is

Sugarwater in a jar

Placed on the blue veranda

     The lid only half on 

The wasps dive on in but

    Never can never get out

     Whole pantry shelves 

Mass graves of yellowblack carcass

This is a house of bedlam yes

        Yes it is

NEIGHBOURS

Nothing on that street would sleep

Flash of headlight and boiled horn

Passing through my cracked head

A wail of anthem and slurred curse

The always open ear, cannot unhear

What was there before the new noise? 

The brunt of wind raising the roof

Skylark running its volt on the wind

Nightjar whirring, tape tether ended

Lament of rutting fox in vixen scream

Call of the wildest love

Leery owls working out who

Who'd poach from their plate 

Even the boom of blood

Present thunder on the brain

The stubborn workings of the world

Will let themselves be known

DROWNING NARCISSUS

There is an eye in the river
Wide open it rolls downstream
A window nestled in endless windows
Retina of rock, tin can and frond
The iris stained and dappled green

There is an ear in the river
Trickling down the canal
Clean as a giggle, delighted
At its own baby burble
Broken open against stone

There is a hand in the river
A bobbing branch's knuckle
Measuring the season's pace
And catching an odd lazy leaf
Dousing it beneath the stream

There is a head in the river
Mouthing the things it hears
Nosy to the things it knows
Drinking in its clear reflection
Behind its veil are many things
The everything of itself

THE DOG GRINNED

The dog grinned, baring its pit
Of greenwhite sharp stones
Big black, the afterimage
Of a hellhound
Tongue lolling pink and rude
Eyes rolling into the back
Of its flat white skull
Pant: a primal chant
You begin to wonder
Does this one remember
The crown of his ancestor
The pack - the hunt - the kill
What we call feral and maddened
Just the bathing in its base blood

RING COUNTER

I lay in the field
Learning the dead
I fed on the dirt
Flexing in the sun

In my wound
You fix your name
Choke you in my hair
Bag of blood
I permit you like rain
To fall and break

In my mast years
I woke up pregnant
In the hush I gave birth
Cast my darlings far

Wild and rude
I grow into
This soft bed

THE COOKING WORLD

I hover like a body of flies

Above the cooking world 

The man up a planetree 

In his dirty vest

Slices electric the branches

Fall like soft fat

The tree shuffles sweat

A woman and her baby

All pinky blue

Grind their pram wheel 

Axel stuck with a fist 

Of dry pigeon bread

Greenred bike 

Rusted shut with dirt

Handlebars the pedals

Prized off, the torso

Sears black the grass beneath

Window addressed

A barber shucks a jaw

Clenched, eyes locked

Pinned by sunlight

Foam slips down the mirror

A beech has burst its banks

Grown an iron fence

Drips of wood around ribs

Long since this happened 

It is still happening