In the event of
1
if you want to get the most
out of these poems
value for money or more
significantly value for time
discard expectation first
be who and how you are
a pilgrim venturing by eye down
the black on white path of the page
2
in the absence of clocks
church bells or calls to prayer
from a tower or temple
time is silent
accumulating and dispersing
at the same pace always
what’s gained on one hand
soon spent by the other
3
whenever I feel need
of support I return
to Cold Mountain
a human existence
so precarious he resorted
to begging and eating weeds
and yet so rich
in every other way
he may not even have existed
at least in the guise
posterity imposes on him
4
to make his country
more efficient the dictator
introduced clocks
and had them synchronised
so the peasants who formerly
rose with the sun and returned
from their fields at dusk
now had an accurate
measure of the working day
though still there was
little profit to be made
from their smallholdings
after tithes and taxes
were paid to their rulers
5
here comes one now
possessions in a
kitchen bin liner
trouser cuffs frayed
from dragging
what’s left of his mind
not here at all
in this place and time
6
a half truth
is still half a lie
the river and the curved boats
that ply it
the storm at sea
and the widows it makes
of decent women
a village below the snowline
where chimney smoke
drifts between houses
policies of the next government
if it is the next government
7
you go to the ground
and colour of the ground
to nature
large monochromatic areas
moss and myrtle
juniper and bamboo
the light in its
infinite agility
subtler in shape than pigment
changes and changes
or damps down and shadows variegation
8
in the same week Tane Norton died
so too did Sugar Man
Robbie Robertson and Brice Marden
a generation over eighty passing on
passing their energy on
joining hands with the fire dead of Lahaina
war dead of Ukraine
from an increasingly debilitated planet
The outcome
1
seagulls shriek and circle
over the remains of a drowned goat
washed down by the flood
other perhaps more horrible things
lie under the brown water
waiting to surface
some are only ideas
or long memories of boundary disputes
night footsteps on a gravel road
a boat with a motor bubbling at the stern
explores channels for hazards
backing or turning into cleared passages
people it’s hard to feel solidarity with
arrive to collect finds among the debris
and are gone by nightfall
sight and taste and smell are lost
underneath where fright is instant
and silent to the end
2
in the empty house there are traces
of three generations
polished brass shell cases from a war
and a croquet trophy
orange froth in the sink
after a pasta meal
curtains drawn but light through the doorway
articulates an inner room
we who have never lived here
can only surmise
face masks boiler
suits polythene overshoes
fingertip-searching the flower beds for evidence
3
mirrors forget the images
reflected in them
and even the cleanest window
interrupts the sky
light so often used
as a metaphor for clarity
can be more subtle
than we are persuaded
narratives of the past
lead to unwarranted expectations
not all of which
make it into history
a distant cry
signals a return home
only time can confirm
as sorrowful or joyful
the bright side
is the side where the residents
dressed for the occasion
meet and discuss
in fiction the investigator
is the maestro
drawing the threads
into a solution
yet any artist knows
it is the miscreant
without whom there’d be no story
who started all this