1 New Poem

The Unfinished Country

I draw the lines, they trace themselves
straight, true to paper scaffold
crackling up against a vision

Of lands great and beyond sky’s reach,
sumptuous, possible and laid before.

Too coloured from rain to grip
quills again, if I weren’t
so sullen I’d do it
myself without a moment’s

Mulling over the shape
air makes over borders.

As if skipping lightly, traversing
taps through boiling last lances,
my shapes are not so undefined;
capitals have roots to road,
set down on high, from distracted hands.

In that they weren’t so different,
in delirium tremors,

Than the last time I stepped
out into newfound soil,
terrain yet to be overrun with
razor wire and shadow figures

That rode and came along
through buses and Buicks to be here.

1 New Poem

Things Were Golden

It came through windows,
streaming, dappling the
wine glass Wednesday
in fantasia’s soft edges,
taking woolen stock of all
before;

Tinted in pooling memory,
I stood in it, lapping
up with a hungered air.

Though, as quickly, it left,
with barren sweep of sound
through the valley ringing.

It echoed of well-spending
time before warring words
and spirit rations.

They had been so quick
to fizzle as spring coil
against rock-plunged cliffs
of self-doubting restraint;

Or was it all bitter taste
of dog’s tooth elixir

That made it go so dark
again?