A Golden Shovel poem, after Fu Hsuan I. Grief follows like thunder,crossing the channel. An armyof prayers salt my father’s heart. While the grand organ trembleswe throw damp confetti,give the occasion a lift. II. The evening is balmy,blanketed by thunderhead. Restless, my brother rises fromhis bedclothes to bathe. On a pale clod of pillowhairs stray …
Behind sliding doors: an inheritance,Gifts passed across and down. Fusty leather broken at the elbow.Corduroy grazed by candlelight.Shoes without laces. The true heirlooms hung to one side,swatches of pale morning:blue button-ups. Something to grow into.
He heard feathersRustled by the first commuter train,Felt the stimulus of dark caffeineRushing through his veins. An ancient river stirredRefreshed by recent rain.Everything was differed,Though much remained the same. He brushed against the push of strangers,Trying to find a seat,Envying the luxury of lie-ins,Of naked flesh in sheets. And the city rose around him,Bitter, immediate …
Or: How I’ll cat-call you after 40 years of marriage Hey! You’re intoxicating as sherry.Original like Werther’s sweets.Close to me as a pacemaker.You make me complete. I wanna get old with you, baby.Seriously old.I wanna hear young’uns whisper,Seriously, how’d they get so old? I wanna love you in nothin’ but wrinkles.Yeah, your Sunday Best.I wanna …
At rest, between stops,neither here nor there,your hot head nestledjust past my shoulder. And I invite you:forever shelter in that shallow cove. Stay, While I watch over.
A breath – to bring forthtightrope-walking wordsto leap, dance and dazzle,sway the endings of your nerves – never comes. Instead the truth,that I prize you in quite ordinary waysbecause of your paternal carein those earliest of days, when you taught me the worldand the heavens aboveand the devils belowand what it means to love. You …
Outside:Sombre stone and glittering Douro. Inside:Ecstatic saints.Rococo in Brazilian gold.The rapture of a Moroccan massacre.The rhapsody of Jesse’s tree.A tangle of victimhood and victory. Between:A lunchtime rush for salvation.Immortalising souls with disposable cameras.Violence in their viewfinders. Beneath:The dead in boxes.A destination to consider.
You serve no one by being small,She says, as if we can trust police.There are no cynics in her studio. We rise, lock eyes and close them –A flow filmed, what? Five years ago?Two thousand and seventeen. To think (though we should not be thinking)That was before the rings, the dog, the limp,The leak, the …
The week bucked,flicking the rotoscopefrom white cliffsto ranked crosses. Replacing the elephantwith a bleachedcolumn of fossil,churning silt. A twisted shoepreserved beneath glassstamps the mind. How to slipthis sorry pieceinto the shiningmosaic of victory?
You declared day, naming sunrisewith strong singsong voice offering the worldthe whole waking world and the prospect ofearning a dollar.
