WAR LETTERS
On the battlefield
The men are etched in grey.
Eyes - incendiary winks.
Eye-beams and snuffed hearts.
In the noise and confusion
Tongues scream upwards, a
Scroll of words
Unfurled black tips.
A boy beautifully inscribed in
Italic, puffs and blows away
Men are captive to the uniform
Service the steel clasps
Of National Anthems
If your captured alive
Empty your mind of all orders,
Of those secret cursive letters
THE SEAM
I weep for lack of cover
In neat walled cemetaries -
All the hills of daffodils,
And roaring lions cannot cover
Wounds that runs like rivers
Into mounds of earth -
Only the mothers with care
Can congeal their love into
Onions, leeks, broccoli
The simple economy
Of primary need
Over years they fed these
Longings and blind fish
Into a mined cave
Where all the roots
Were braided lockets
For men who worked blind
Pursuing their steel breath
THE LIBRARY OF REMEMBERANCE
Climbing the vine
I strip back the ugliness
Show the shoots of our love
Our first howling meeting.
My adventurous wise mouse
Moves higher up its
Ladder of Creation
I climb her black tights
To the mouth - mouse
Sees Im haloed in a blue flame,
Erudition my studied skin
(Night lights turn over
These drunken eyes)
Our one mouth a library
Of remembered embraces
We throw away our year long
Research into dragon bile, love
Leaves its prison, as we catalogue
Each turn of the head and
Lift the bible of this heavy breast.
HEAVY HEARTED AND HAM FISTED
My heart heavy
I lay it in a field
To let the sun cherish
My feelings - and peeled
These tired eyes to let
Loose muscles palpate
Before your imperious face
(Seeking a dropped mirror
Some natural Grace
Or a smile) as this conspiracy
Of hand-clasps
Wrings out its twitching guilt,
I spray a fertiliser of a
Blood mist, across this barren land
THE DEVIL IN THE DETAIL
After the redundancy
The corrosion begins -
She loves she hates
He ignores her as she relates
A description of a naked scarecrow
A hairy man with a big wink
They speak two inept languages
His unkempt sparkling eyes
(Not having slept) try to focus -
His mind is lubed with Vodka,
Playboy videos
Both liking
And hating the trivial corners
Of their love, he turns a
Sharp corner and they hit
***
A tree a big dead birch tree
***
The radial spins for a while
After two weeks the MG car
Goes to the wrecker
***
Before God and the Devil
They sit nervous - see their lives weighed
Into pounds,shillings and pence. Silent
Words lodged in their hearts
...One chooses to stetch out a hand
A law court fades to a meadow
There is privacy - and this is Atlantis
Bathed in sunshine
...as darling Arthur promised
And its a lovely package holiday
...As Arthur had promised her
And which Iris
...(who had always loved)
Had really been looking forward to