GROUNDED

Above soil
it's late morning
the wet grass
is foamy, starting to steam.
He lays on it,
drowsed in a half-dream.
On his chest
lays another, folded out
like a picnic blanket,
napping to her own
breath’s metronome.
So moved by the other
they do not move, snoozed,
entwined and of a single-mind:
today, their reason for living
is to lay open on the field
and little more

And beneath the ground
a short while down,
where time moves according
to different principles
lies an earlier coupling
no, not really knitted,
welded is fitting,
fused by pressures
of the shifting, breathing earth.
Together they make
a conjoined half-sucked
pocketed boiled sweet,
a jostled sticky glass
But noticeably, still
once actual people.
And here, as above,
a reel of time runs.
Not even the click
of the tongue can
bring them undone

COMPOSED ON MILLENNIUM BRIDGE, AUGUST 3, 2019

Heading over Millennium bridge
I am lulled - just a little
by the slight sway in the path ahead
like a compass trying to find its mark.
I stop for several couples
wanting photos of themselves in the sunset
my my, it really is something tonight
clouds purple like a bruise on a chest.
The couples, they cling to each other
as if they never aim to be apart again
and after pressing that button,
in a way they never are.
The pixels fizz in the photos
but never really capture it.

I'm stopped again, what do
I look like, Cartier-Bresson?
It's fine. I'm in no rush,
nowhere to be at this hour.
Along the railing a well-to-do
character is staring out, leaning
against the barrier. I do the same.
I watch him, he's oblivious
just staring into the fat red sun
it gives me time, time to study him
bald on top, orangey sideboards
(though this could just be
a trick of the light)
his nose is like a boulder
on a mountain top,
he's dressed to the nines
like he's just popped out
for a breather
from his own wedding
the look on his face
is utterly calm - eyes forward
despite the churning Thames beneath him
(that today, in the height of summer,
smells unmistakably of shit)
perhaps this is what it's like to find grace
at the centre and yet apart from it.
He turns as a Chinese couple
stand at his side for a photo
they hand me the camera
"smile!" I say,
they grin and freeze.
He doesn't smile, doesn't even really
notice this scene,
not the Wordsworth I know anyhow
he looks behind me
into the oncoming deepening blue