Marconi Fire

across the white bridge
orange fire still licks the horizon
traffic stopped, the people are walking
walking and turning towards the smoke
sunbathers capture the sun on their bodies
we walk, cycle, step in step together
across the river and down the white
stone steps where the rough sleepers sleep
and past the backs of the hotels
where smokers gather and parcel men find no-one
to take the parcel and all the while the sky
burns and the meteors rain down and little plastic
things people carry to speak and see bleep no news
about this exit over the river into the evening
to drink and talk and go homeward a different way
nobody runs

Sweets and Chocolates

I have made a counter
for my sweets and chocolates and the counter
is in the distance of the tunnel
where many feet pass by at all hours
my counter is made of such beautiful lace
and many people stare at my counter
and I stay all day with my sweets
I stay and watch and keep watch over
my green sweets and yellow cubes of jelly
and my crazy shaped chocs that freshly daily
wait on display far away in the tunnel deep in the cool
tunnel where the sun shines only from a mirror
at night it is good to breathe the nightsummer the sweetsummer metropolitain air.....

My Sensual Crayon

Paper resists the press of wax
I push the rounded tip along whiteness of sand
the beach where blue gravity flies with light:
meet me in the open air restaurant
by the River where there is no more fish.
Together we will suppose and imagine,
still familiar with the blond beer, the bread and olives
the white salad and salmon from a can.
If I cannot write about you, at least let's meet.
Everything I haven't told you yet is mad.

Poetry Pivotal

Documents for Poets 3

“Transcendental Meditation helps
a man to remember who he is.”

So said the oldest man in the world
after learning the simple practice.

Go with a few clean clothes in a suitcase:
you can find a hotel room somewhere

overlooking a canal, close eyes
for twenty minutes, slowly open again

and find that you are there
looking out at unfamiliar surroundings

which over a few hours, a couple
of days, take on the semblances

of the old walks and pathways - faces
of the young recall old friends –

knowing also that they can’t know
whom they resemble. There’s no

satisfaction in knowing that
you too must resemble someone. So

with its unique attributes a leaf –
and just a leaf – floats down the canal.


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The Wall

The Wall





At first the wall
was easy to paint
my oil-crayon colours
mixed so well
to do mortar and brick

a step closer
and then another step

the wall got harder
and the closer I got
the harder it became

to paint the wall




each brick
became itself
bit by bit

brick by brick
a crayon-full
of colour

driven by hunger
each pock and crevice
forced me closer

soon I needed
a whole wall
to paint my wall

my arms ached
and my body hurt
as each new wall-sized picture
required more
of my crayons
than I could carry
more paper
than I could hold...

now I am working
a section at a time
to cover each
small surface of
a brick’s existence

the paintings
are getting smaller




one portion of a brick
becomes a crumb of cake

another a ward-
robe made of
autumn twigs

a drop of water
gets in
a sky-blue drop

with miniature crayons

to-day
I did just one part
Of a drop

a drop
that has invited
me to paint

inside its walls
of breathable glass.

+++

A poem About Me

To the Point of a Leaf

Look for me in the gloss
of an ear of corn
and on the surface
of ocean waves

you do not want to go
to the treacherous
diaphanous depths

don’t go down
to the gaunt caves
of earthen shade
to find me

look for me
where the yellow rose
casts an illusory light

in the light
that streams forward
through an open beach window

in the sand that
breaks down to tiny jewels
on your finger

not in the cellar’s restive dark

come to the point
of a leaf to meet me
to the old orchard’s
bearable noon -

or
don’t come, don’t come.

+++

Dance Macabre

The dance did not begin
or end with sex -
we just fell over each other, a spin,
an innocent trip in the darkness.

We held onto each other
to keep the illusion of sameness
from day to dawn: a changeless colour.
It took the hopelessness

out of despair - expressos
stretched our words to balance
tight-rope walkers' gains and losses,
only by staying in a trance

hour after hour. Our longing has become
the need carefully to tell
about life's last connundrum:
how we learn at last to fall,

to roll, and walk towards the night
with nothing in either hand
except the memory, still gripped tight,
of the indefinable, defined.

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