In The Poetry

Prayer

God give me strength to lead a double life.
Cut me in half.
Make each half happy in its own way
with what is left. Let me disobey
my own best instincts
and do what I want to do, whatever that may be,
without regretting it, or thinking I might.

When I come home late at night from home,
saying I have to [...]

Wedding Day

noise of a ring sliding onto a finger

supposing he did say that?
we came by the front
sea fog twisting light above the pebbles
towards the cliffs towards the sea

i made this pact, intelligence
shall not replace intuition, sitting here
my hand cold on the typewriter
flicking the corner of the paper. he

came from the toilet wearing
a suit, people
didn’t recognise [...]

The Moon Upoon the Waters

the green of days : the chimneys
alone : the green of days and the women
the whistle : the green of days and the women
the whistle of me entering the poem through the chimneys
plural : I flow from the (each) fireplaces
the green of days : I barely reach the sill
the women’s flecked [...]

The Whitsun Weddings

That Whitsun, I was late getting away:
Not till about
One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday
Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out,
All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense
Of being in a hurry gone. We ran
Behind the backs of houses, crossed a street
Of blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock; thence
The river’s level drifting breadth began,
Where sky and Lincolnshire [...]

This was written in London but…indeed most of my poetry was written in London although most of it is based on images and sensations which I experienced in my home village or in the countryside around it but again, strangely enough, I was saying just now, sitting in these deep green fields with the pigeon-filled [...]

The Boneyard Rap

This is the rhythm
of the boneyard rap,
knuckle bones click
and hand bones clap,
finger bones flick
and thigh bones slap,
when you’re doing the rhythm
of the boneyard rap.
Wooooooooo!

It’s the boneyard rap
and it’s a scare.
Give your bones a shake-up
if you dare.
Rattle your teeth
and waggle your jaw
and let’s do the boneyard rap
once more.

This is the rhythm
of [...]

Tasmania

Water colour country. Here the hills
rot like rugs beneath enormous skies
and all day long the shadows of the clouds
stain the paddocks with their running dyes.

In the small valleys and along the coast,
the land untamed between the scattered farms,
deconsecrated churches lose their paint
and failing pubs their fading coats of arms.

Beyond the beach the [...]

The Lake

At dusk she walks to the lake. On shore
a few egrets are pinpointing themselves
in the mud. Swallows gather the insect line

off the velvet reed-heads and fly up through
the drapery of willows. It is still hot.
Those clouds look like drawn-out lengths

of wool untwilled by clippers. The egrets
are poised now – moons [...]

Passing a School Playground

The imps are with the angels
Behind the netted wall;
The squeals of pigtailed lassies
The thump of boot on ball.

A bookworm in a corner,
The bully on his round,
Miss Showoff in her trainers
That cost a hundred pound.

A murderer’s among them,
A few who’ll make it rich,
Here’s fame and shame in training,
But God knows which is which.

This poem describes something that many of us have seen along the side of roads – abandoned amusement parks, entertainment centres and so on. Nebraska has some of these, Eastern Colorado is full of them.

The Giant Slide

Beside the highway, the Giant Slide
with its rusty undulations lifts
out of the weeds. It hasn’t been [...]