Gray

You know, there’s nothing to this
Wet benches, sugared smiles
Don’t mistake this magic for a trait of mine
That night when we stood by the sea
He said ‘I’m tired of being me’
And when I said
‘You’re not yourself’
It isn’t how it looks…
Because I love you like the dead men we pretend we are
From new editions
Of old books.

Birth of A Naturalist

'Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; I'll dig with it'
- Seamus Heaney

That window and the dark getting in
And hiding the dust in corners
And my face there on the glass like a
Fainting spell or when
The room spins with spirits.
And outside the lamplight reflection
Of inside, like tracing paper
Held up to sky, the shape of leaves behind,
The picture changes in the frame, no clean
Lines, no flat, neat world but the rustling of
Thickets and the slime
Of gross-bellied frogs and the mud
Alive with earthworms

I think I'll run into October
meet the chill air with clogged lungs
Pull up grass in green-stained fistfuls
Not look back at this lit window
Scratch at soil with blunted fingers
Leave the clocks and hairdryers,
The dustbins and the telephones,
And harrowing the wordless ground
Will silence all their hollow sound.

A pen is lighter than a spade
But my words dig me graves.

Fierce Endings

I'll wait.
Until the fade of clichéd daybreak
Entitles me to speak.
The hackneyed burst of fuchsia
Melting lilac, as the
Silhouettes of birds and
Rooftops, tired of being mentioned,
Shrug square shoulders at the sky.
I'll wait,
But will have said my piece
Before the violet dusk lies
Like cashmere on the landscape,
That too-familiar metaphor
For waning.
I'll wait,
But while I'm waiting
These words work.

Remembrance Day

Eleventh hour silence
Makes sudden sentries of us
Stationed on street corners, we are
Guardians of the ghosts
That remind us why we stopped
And why the pigeons scattered
At the gunshot.

Gunpowder Treason

Outside with gauzed eyes
With empty-bottle vision, staring
At the lacquered holly, sharp
As breaths we took
Ages saying nothing
And feeling all the bones ache
Where once you touched.

Enjoying the scratch
Of knit on bitten fingertips
Our sighs form clouds in sparkling
Air laced with gunpowder
I remember
You and people I'd forgotten
Like me you forgot.

Losing Orion to the dark
Evenings full of lights, I asked
A pretty stranger for it
But he didn't see
Ages saying nothing
And filling in the silences
Where once you talked.

Ways of Looking (Draft 1- for John Ashbery, if he'd have it)

Like the difference between
What we see through
Prescription glass,
Deceitful clarity.
You see the blades of grass.
I see phantom mountains.

'What a shame', she sighed,
'The way you look, you'd think you'd
Be less principled'
Her sequins shrugged, the party
Glasses chattered, holding half-full guests.

I can kill two stone-throwers
With one bird (or look).

We used to see each other
You held my gaze and hand.
Were held in high regard.
Now you don't look the same.
Now you don't look my way
So you don't see.

Like the difference between
The way the day looks
At the pink-brushed dawn
The ink-spill trees
With spindle- fingered stretches
And how it changes
Into bright grey morning
The gulls on chimney pots
Our eyes open.

'Mellow Fruitlessness'

This town at this time of year
The cold sun strikes the wind blown street
Red mulch muffles the click of heels
On pavement under painted trees
And there's that quality of light
That makes you sad and beautiful
On this leaf-dappled patch of grass
As you sit on that cracked green chair,
It's enough to drive me to god
Behemoth clouds above our heads
The easy silences we share
The cobwebs spun from captured sun
The ivy tendrils choke the beech,
I catch snatches of your speech
And 'we are dying, Egypt, dying'
And the sunlight on this garden
(And your eyelashes) is fleeting
I can hide hard words and feelings

This town at this time of year:
I could even forgive you
If that's what would keep you here.