Where Summer is Hiding

Something came out of the mist today
from where the summer was hiding
 
taking the shape of your childhood,
playing impish tricks with light.

From where I stood, blinking, dumb,
shrouded in the clouds of adulthood

it was hard to be sure, and harder still
to know how to think or to act.

So I’m sorry to say, I stood for nothing,
walking your way, reaching for form,

knowing too, when the clouds get to you
you’ll remember where summer is hiding.

Dry Ink

I wanted to write you
a transcendent song;
soaring spirit stirring stuff.

What came was a war wound
in words, half healed,
displaying still sticky, red.

Folding the paper away,
I plunged my obstinate pen
into the drying well,

scraping up ferrous flakes
and scattering them,
like clues, for you to find.

Refresh

I always click:

refresh

because I want more,

from the server.

I can’t undo,

            or create

middleware to parse

this love into a separate

database.

There is no change control,

just one long sprint,

for a delivery,

                       that always moves.

Fishing

You made a fist with fingers
not long released by guts
torn with inexact rage from
the newly split belly of your catch.

Half blinded by the bright static
of retreating tide,

I shouted
               in pointless kinship
above the outboard’s drone

“Protest the tough love of the hook,”

and your bucket skudded aft,
                                           brimming
with awkward silver smiles.

Old Bovver

You were on Brick Lane at the trendy end

and had some audacity to stand,

in ancient steel toed DM boots

with the red laces of the national front,

drawn up tight around matchstick legs

like the lips stretched across remaining

 teeth, which to me at least

also looked like matchsticks lined up

rickety in the stale partially discarded

Hubba Bubba of your gums.


I don’t know if the unexploded ordinance

of your violence was about to trigger,

or if the queer kids in mental hospital chic

or the Bangladeshi man, strayed from

the curry end of this blent street,

had caused you to stand here

in a reverie of shattered politics,

but you seemed harmless enough,

with your now naturally hairless head,

smoother than a beigal,

empty as a morning street.
 

The Visit

I didn't have much in mind
when letting you in to rummage 

amongst old keys and filter through 

your fingers, cat litter
the soiled clods of which sputtered off 

your boots, which as I remember bore
an indecent shine.
There was barely any purpose to this
beyond my need to know
how far you'd go, 

to prove your theory;

that I am wicked.

Amber

Seasons never change with a hard break;

summer runs warm hands across 

the colder cheek of autumn,

who in turn sent chilling emissaries 

as far back as July,

when the weakest leaves performed skits of the fall

for the relief of sweltered crowds in city parks 

dropped, as we said, like the dead.


Nothing ever ends,
 

a touch once felt can’t fade in fullness 

if it is at least remembered.

I remember seeing Viking amber 

shipped as far as Rome,

the memory of a harsh Norse grip trapped, 

like an ancient Baltic mosquito, 

stumbled into posterity 

exploring the oozed sap of pre-historic pine,

fate sealed like fame, for the future.

 

And perhaps that's what we are;

visitors who’s warm touch

waits for the unravelling,  

for the faithful march of time.