WATERCOLOURS

The window is at work — painting
the world dribbling down
the glass, we’re under
water and looking up —
fixed onto the surface
grey and quivering green
I look into a magnifying bead
a gigantic blackbird rushes me

A MOVING IMAGE

Here I am, a half-finished man;
unfinished bog body, doped
by a lapping at my belly.
You kneel by the tub
squeezing out soap

I reflect a sluggish portrait,
dirt-faced with an eye
running down a cheek
nose folded
into my mouth.

Admiring my sud beard, you flick
the water and I explode
into clouds of light,
it takes me a while
to reassemble

In a low, soothing tone
you explain your day
laving rings on my back
they loop and sink,
tickling as they burst.

My head grows heavy, I drift
in and out,
in and out, in
tiny moments of creation
there and gone

THE COLOUR OF PIGEONS

Lunch in the park
A crow pulling
At a leg
Of fried chicken

From nowhere
A cloud condenses
A sea of metals
Birds the same colour
As their shit

She is humming
A light dinner music
Conducting with crusts
Of hard white loaf
Purplegreen hoods
Bobbing on crumbs
Orange eyes unmoving
Stupid and alert

She upends her brown bag
Emptying out the crumbs.
As she passes me,
She clucks:
‘You sit on the only bench
In this whole park
Where you get
Covered in shit’

BASILISK

From early morning coffee

to noon walking the shore

you spoke your sadness

getting a hold on it,

grappling with the thing

‘a green

wriggling darkness’

‘Alone, deep

In a forest at dusk’

the more you spoke of it

the further away it went

We found on the beach

a stump of bleached ash

darkened by high tide

a knot made a cruel eye

the cracked end, a jaw

writhing in a roar

‘the white

skull of a serpent’

‘the head

of a stone snake’  

Later, drinking black wine

legs hardening with tiredness

you threw the driftwood

into the flames, embers

flew upwards, wrenching

off a belch of fire, the eye

smouldering as it split

we looked on with nothing

but light

and silence

DAWN CHORUS

Over a yellow road I go
wandering alone,
stupid and content
this straight road
taken so many times
still I do not know

Honeycomb dawn
     the light is still
waking up. Yawn
of a dusty wind,
warmed by stone
moves through me;
I shiver in happiness
the town unfolds

A painted blue gate, white house,
the garden a cloud of roses
murmuring from open windows
t.v. or tune,
I do not know

The town begins
to talk
to itself
men and women
gather on its corners
Outside shops, a bakery,
gathering threads
of faraway news.
What they wove
I do not know

A FINE MESS

After the meal I am fully miserable
What the hell did I cook this for?
There's nothing appetising here
Even the cat won't touch it

Pig - cloves - hoof - bitter herbs

This cutlery, made of bones, mine
This plate, cracked, a relic of someone old
Even the table wobbles, sending wine
All up my shirt. Will I ever be clean?

CONSEQUENCES

There were always consequences
the crying of one of the children
could mean the loss of an ear lobe
sometimes a toe, never a finger
how else were we to work the loom?
But wrapped in three thick blankets
the cold had no way in, only darkness
I melted into dream
one of the girls pinched my foot
I woke with a yelp fortunately
muffled by the three thick blankets
jealous, I was told
"you are like a harpist,
a pleasure to behold"
Making rubbishy jumpers all day
I still enjoy those words