Pebbleman

Pebblehead: tough nut for cracking
and chip-chip whacking at others –
pebblehead is different
from interfering brothers and sisters
in the pebble world.
He is best hurled to the top –
success for him early!

Pebblebody: some happy go
steady heart of it all.
Not too big, never small enough
to never pump a torso around
on a summer’s day – bare-chested
and burned, unrested in centrality
and node for the others.

Pebblearms: cannot lift a weight,
cannot wait with twiddled thumbs,
cannot jam some rings upon fingers,
flick a V at bad singers because –
because pebblearms have no hands
and cannot sign those final demands
for more action on the earth.

Pebblelegs: jointless, heartless, headless,
thankless, worthless, legless, pointless.
They cannot walk a pebbleman
from his birth as placement
to his death as removal
as replacement, an improval
programme and agenda

– some pebbleman!

(This is simply a description of this photo.)

William Blake’s Vision of Angels (number four-three-two)

"Angel-sigh foursquare and solid
in the tree, green tree support them
turn to kiss each eye, each forehead
in the all-enclosed Argentum.

"Angel-cried in closed trinity
in the hearth, gold fire blazing
godly flames up the starred chimney
each tear torn from eye, amazing.

"Angel-death in binary collusion
my vision holds the fact to life
of all this cold, visionary illusion
of myself, my work, my caring wife."

Arrival (for Nitoo and her sister-aunt)

I am seeing her Martian land,
canals of red, a river of dust.
A crystal tree that must
erupt in sympathy with her.
“Has your poem”, her sister-aunt
loomed by and boomed, “arrived?”
And she said “no”.

Arrivals happen
at one point –
some relative point,
head-out-of-joint
with neck most times.
When did you arrive?
At some point…

Her sister-aunt now golden eyed
lied to her and whispered: “It has arrived?”

Some tweak of time,
some twang of rubber.
The arrival comes
with an hour not a shudder.

A table, green with anticipation
beneath the writer and her poet-thoughts.
A bed, some alien of trembling, behind.
“Has it arrived?” demands the sister-aunt .
Accuser- interrogator, interpolator-bemuser
at the ways of poets in this world…
“No”, she said “but soon…”

From two angles
relative to a fixed point
the point in question
distances
itself from the other
(that other is itself).

I am seeing her Martian land.
But the poem whelks itself
on the air for her to take.
But to sister-aunt it is clinging
to the poet’s hair not “to make”
but “been made” and fashioned.
Sister-aunts don’t care
for the future, they are past
the point of duty to poets and see
that all things are made at last.

Has it arrived? Oh yes,
it came yesterday, it was wild
and I calmed it tame.

Moonwatching on the Black Hill

By the summit, he asked - Does the moon
rise there or there or non-existent - pointing.
And while clouds lazed by Tillietudlem
Tinto rose over-by and laughed
Goldbush rose over-by and coughed
Goat Fell rose over-by and answered:

it never rises, only falls
it never falls, only raises
itself onto an elbow invisible
to men who ask it where it rises.

it never chooses, only sulks
it never sulks, only chases
the watcher’s eyes, stays visible
to men who dare to ask for choices.

Silhouette of bird in tree

A cinematic bird
set profiled black
on morning blue
with silent song
unheard untrue
untested in daylight
unused to stark
branch on sky
forcing branches
to separate
and merge again
via birdsong
and shadow of wing
the shadow to sing
of the morning
and night again
the shadow to bring
some darkness
through to sunrise
to echo noise
on branch ways
the shadow of bird
to plant itself
on the eyes
of those who heard
it raise the sun.

Fragment from an old story

He found in a stream
that fed to the Avon
a heart-shaped stone
that he would have given
to her had he ever
seen her again.

But in days he had crushed
the stone he had found
to sand like the desert
and cast it around
the heart he would never
offer again.

And many months after
he thought of the stone
he thought of the sand
that heart of his own
and asked if he’d ever
find them again.