Sunday 28 February 2016

1 New Poem

Codewords for Dissent

I believed in dedication, unwavering
in kind of wish-white snowfall,
reach across voided letter-stamp
notational crosswater chopping,
shattering sunlight, hector glass
on ornament rug, carpet staining
from memorials of past time,
wise and foolish fraught.

You aren’t like that anymore,
grounded in some theory of
old continentals and longitudinal
ruler lines; it’s animated,
full flower of spectrum,
blooming on half-hearth.

But I still am, perceptible
persona projected in light box
hue, flickering against smoother
walls of polishing stone; but never
so much a mythology as
protest song banner,

crooked hung.

Sunday 21 February 2016

1 New Poem

Exist

You rush through me, port call
wager flooding spaces between,
shipping reports cluttering, stacking
up Caribbean minders’ stockade
file room banner march, molecular
by nature.

Permeable, I let in breaths,
let in illusions, let in
chapbook illustrations, let in
breaking weight, being there
in lighted solemn digression
just to

let us know you do.

Monday 15 February 2016

1 New Poem

Disorderly
Proceeds so logical from
prop-engine dreams to settled state,
fugue between distraction, dedication,
two poles before logic of
iron ore pits; it wasn’t worth
all these screaming matches across
grays of matter, Brighton waves
finding their life’s match in crest
of skylark wing motion.

It was so well-kept,
made imperfect.

Sketched out dragging formation,
that rumbling surface ever same:
hot from penny-piece pill remedies,
hot from swelling deliberation.

It makes greater moulding than impressed
copper, faces of ancient god-kings in
line: yes, again, it remains, hovers,
cloys, prom dance perfume,
teenage bonfire cedar.

It was so monochrome,
made infinity’s shade.

Taste of colour drags heavy,
touching as oil spill ink pot
next graces of glance, next
kind of hopeful nature could
come to shaking leaf sprawl
view.


It was so imperfect,
made whole.

Sunday 7 February 2016

1 New Poem

An Exchange of Nothings
You make me bare myself,
to Northwest winds,
to casks of Iron Age reprise,
to Mayflower rot of time,
to lost language, stolen hours,

but it isn’t so cold I can’t
handle.

It’s not the logic,
no constant shape of
your lemon dress shading,
however close it comes to
liberation to spindle-spool,
revelation always withdrawn.

But I came with reflections:
you shatter.

I came with glad tiding:
you treble.

I came with numbness jading:
you realize.

If I bit tongue, it was
only to cease formless flood,
only to give proper blueprint
to something without a mapped place
in phrenology charts,

to wanting your Gaelic shorthand
astride my battered Franglais accent,

calling each other as permanent
notion, perfected;

no, not that, something better:

ours.