Saturday 25 August 2018

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.

Monday 13 August 2018

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?