from DEADLY POLLEN

Once cradle of civilization -

now crucible, a sandstorm of tanks,

a battery of rocket-launchers

each one bright as a guiding star

slams home to its birthplace, sand sprites

leap dervishly, limbs gad about,

horses buckle back upon themselves -

empty out like exhausted bellows.

A beggar (in nameless rags) calls

out in either prayer or curse to

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For The Engine Will Be Coming

As they swung out onto the road
Past the old people
and their Chevies with the engines
still running,
bleeding black and red sorrow
on the beach road
into the horizon,
we young boys trembled
and waited,
knowing our turn
would one day come
to climb aboard and disappear.

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11 Runes (for Alf, turning 11)

1.
I’m not sure what’s not
Or what’s understood:

I’ll give you what I’ve got
To see you to manhood.

2.
The sun’s on the water.
It’s the middle of winter.

I never had a daughter.
Or thoughts of one, either.

3.
This is the way it is:
You’re ten, I’m sixty-one.

These (as they say) are the facts:
We’re father and son

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Howl

You and I,
From something grizzly,
Across the ivied school.
Its demolishing wake -
The private yards, the laundries,
Shed of Taubman Bosch
And Makita Dupont.

Oh Fendalton.
You asked me not to leave,
Or something else.

Leaping rooftops,
Daresbury’s houses hurdled
By those hirsute scissor strides.

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Corpus and Discovery

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Old Song

I’m feeling ok still in some small way.
I’ve come too far to just go away.
I wish I could stay here some way.

So now that what comes wouldn’t only be more
of what’s to be lost. What’s left would still leave more
to come if one didn’t rush to get there.

What’s still to say? Your eyes, your hair, your smile,
your body sweet as fresh air, your voice in the clear morning
after another night, another night, we lay together, sleeping?

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For my acupuncturist

Thinking of the one
who works beyond the veil
Who turns his mindful heart
and seeing hands
To silent winds
and stubborn damp,
To unseen fires
and creeping cold,
To stagnant flows
and slowing streams
Then re-orders all before him
with his careful sword.

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Last Born

I am the last born
I move through the crowd with my shiny red wheels
I bring with me large animals and flaming spikes in
    cages
I am the last born and I know who I want to vote for
I know the identity of the figure in black
Low prices are written all over my face
I am the last born and I have a long following
Everything and everyone is my elder
I move through the relatives in my green leaves
I eat canoes and drink inlets

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The Sick Son

Because a tree was touching a cloud

I hid under my bed. My brother hid under the covers.

Then my mother came in. She hid inside her head.

My father was out in the great world with his axe.

Would he attack the house this time, or just the tree?

'Come out at once,' he called, 'and come out singly.'

When I was little, he sat me on his knee.

He read to me. He read to me.

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Scattering Frank.
i.m. Frank Pendlebury 1947-2007

She gave me your ashes in silence
to speak: you were as heavy
as the life you had lived.

Stood there with words that were
long since departed: tasting as
dry as the grief on our lips.

Whispered goodbyes that were
almost a prayer: already you
sounded like birdsong about us.

Handed you over to the air
and the ocean: you the young
runner with marathon hunger.

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