Tuesday 13 July 2010

i put on the brave face
and go about the mend.

yet still
the nightly nightmare brink,
the daily morning panic shrink

as i go around the bend.
and you,

a spectral lover in the sheets.
not here, not there,

again.

my compass needle,
skewed.

my will to love,
gargantuan

and true.

Wednesday 7 July 2010

this fountain, crowned
with summer's regal splendour,

sputters on our bench.
in the shade of birds

fluttering as a sari in breeze,

you fan lashes
over impossible eyes.

watermelon bright, we go
meandering the locks

to aforetime
whilst i

slant up my maps,
tacked to plot the skies,

and am thankful
for the clarity

of our polite englishness.

Sunday 27 June 2010

and what of that constant moon,
thigh-white and breast-full?

and the prodigal mariner
adrift in search of sweet olde shores,

vexed by the springs and neaps
of seasonal tides?

our poetry is writ,
shimmering
in their relentless waters.

Wednesday 23 June 2010

Clissold.

but what it is,
that salmon pink silk,

layed soft upon ripples.
twists up, orange-like

through jet-stream
rippings, butter blue

as perforations
in the clouds.

the mercury of seasons.

Monday 14 June 2010

my map,
unraveled.

in its middle
was she there,
maiden of the globes.

her rock, sounding out
on the ice,
did unlock this city,

slowly,
like a breath.

caught in a cherub’s
compass gust,

blows me hither,
blows me thither.

Wednesday 9 June 2010

till the clouds roll over
in our cups

till the tingle in your tooth
and its tinkle

on the china
till the grains of demerara are

quicksand in the sink
till then i sing

till then i think
that the scarcity of love makes a mockery of all endeavour.

Friday 21 May 2010

i was born today
into a world i had created
in past sleep somehow

emerging suddenly from the deep
warm depths of a womb
that was yours, ours (now

defunct). and barren was i
and dry as these lips and cracked
and raw. a sour umbilical
hacked with rust and blunt
lay heavy on the floor
among the detritus of

words (also ours, once)
of this, this
so-called poetry.