The pull

I guess that they designed it thus:
Four holes in the dome, one woman
Not there to clean but stir up dust, embodying
The beam by which the morning visitant
Is struck; through another gap at evensong
It slopes to stroke the censer and the priest,

Scribing something in a language I can’t read.
Like some galactic starship’s S.O.S still echoing
In space when all the crew are dead, it carries
In its emptiness a pull that I can’t shake
And weighs me down to sit and try to voice
The ringing letters of these walls: to someone

Earlier than me, something means, something means.
And all that I can feel is the stain that I can’t see
Or care enough to make the world, as this building
Does, something gentler, more meaningful than me.

Below the wood the tarn

Below the wood the tarn
as still as a hunter
waiting.

The doe in fog, a sodden net,
inches lower, dips her head,

ears stretched for steps, safety
catches, breaths.

Hooves as delicate as ladies’ hands
grace mud, then press a grasp
so smooth, so welcoming.

It’s not until she’s dipped her cloven
feet in deep that she feels the
pull, and cannot leap.

For a moment in her fear she sees
a doe beneath her, looking up,
one shoulder arched

like Nosferatu as she tugs.

Underneath it all

Can you imagine being boiled alive
how your body would jerk in the rising
bubbles like someone starting to dance?

You wouldn’t see your life before
your eyes (you’d just be thinking
about the heat) - you’d see a clean

white bed, sleek as sheets
of ice. And at your ears, the wind.

Violence

So violence is a good thing then.
Or so I thought, paused and witnessing
The crucifixion once again.

Not drowning but waving, the wrists
That twist and try to lift form an embrace.
It’s this, I hear, that is the act of grace.

You can’t nail yourself to a cross, and I
For one can’t carve a Christ in agony.
But how was he to show and I to see

Without these artisans of misery?

Power

The blankest face
A snowdrop could conjure

Sits absently in court,
Licking at the bit.

Outside a gardener
Whistles ‘Jerusalem’

And her cab drives on
To her solicitor, whose

Secretary is working at the tights
Around her thighs,

Laddered, more laundered
Than her knickers,

Last night’s surprise
Still borrowing her eyes.

Somewhere in her womb
Another lies in wait,

Like the letterbox
Just feet

From the dozing
Husband’s couch,

Motherly, enveloping,
Genuine leather.

The happiness of late

After the party
Balloons wheeze quietly, stoically embrace
The soon departure of their lungs;
The silence is so great that
Pulling open doors
Brings rushing in a life of sound
Like time rewound on tape,
And staler than a kiss at three am.
And we are left, like witnesses
To clear and scrape, and weigh
Our part in this, to search
Among the cans of memory
The happiness of late.

On Primrose Hill

On Primrose Hill
The snow-globe city and a can of lager
Within reach, the stars veiled and coy,
Fading like film in your grandpa’s attic.

A little back from us a galaxy, a group of men
Revolving energies, chanting or dancing,
Fighting maybe. The pulse flared out.

And then, through the long grass
Like low-riding meteors
Men dressed for Friday prayers
Appearing from the night.

Underwriting

I was thinking how good it would be
To have an option on mobiles
That said subliminal, so that underneath
“I’m busy” it would flash, “I just don’t want to
Anymore”. Imagine neon black
And yellow letters.

And then I got to thinking - what if nature’s
Been sending them to me, like the smell
Of snow on a clear wind
Or the black flash of pain
Shuttering the first glimpse
Of bright sunshine on wet pavement.

And as I thought, there grew the rolling thunder
Of a red hot hatch, blue leds for eyeballs
And one dark window down. Inside a face, condensing
Out of bass, mouthing “Wanker”.