Silence of reading
i like the silence of reading Flat on my stomach on the woollen floor My legs waving upwards like the fronds of ferns And in my mind Gigantic screaming monsters Or the mystery ship
Jack – beyond the digits
so here we are at last at the ten-boy Never to be the single-figure-aged-again boy And all the trailing clouds that cling to the not-big child Can be blown away – you’re up in
Eight roundels
(roundel: variation of the rondeau Consisting of three stanzas of three Lines each, linked together with but Two rhymes and a refrain at the end Of the first and third group) 1. The blind
Two thursdays
when the doctor came on a monday He looked at my mother and said There’s something seriously wrong here – She’s had a stroke – she’s almost dead It must have happened on thursday
Bone-fable
one morning the bone was there Set in the centre of waste ground Against the early morning sun The frost along its concave rim Sparkled – raised a hundredfold The price a passing dog
Confessions of a fool
(i) I believed in flower-power (the triumph of the meek) The thought that what a wind could bend was not to be Derided for its weakness but known to draw its calm From a
New age
(i) How new the world is Trying to find Nerve in an old rind (ii) The bread is crumbled For birds to swallow Rolled into droppings Flowers from the hair Of noseless statues Tyrants
Equanimity
october stops the pretence That somehow summer Should still be loitering around It walks through the garden Hanging the spiders up Between fences and flowers It throws rather more dew On the ground than
The shakes
now pay attention (said the teacher) And look up here The children looked up This is william shakespeare Four centuries up On a pedestal Was shakespeare’s head He was what we call A great
Damsel flies
certain creatures it seems are never seen Straight on – they occupy the corner of the eye Once sensed (a second look) they’re gone The damsel even more so than the dragon-fly She’s a
The buddha's tooth
(for matt – 15) In the first seven years you choose your howdah Having by then bare inklings of a journey But where or why – confusion there to cloud a Judgement no more
From the Ansty Experience
(a) They seek to celebrate the word Not to bring their knives out on a poem Dissecting it to find a heart Whose beat lies naked on a table Not to score in triumph
Wimborne minster
though there’s not much faith left And very little snow This scene of wimborne minster Still makes its christmas show The building’s warm proportions Its sense of move-me-not Catches this winter pagan On a
Blue dress
i can see through the blue Dress when you stand In the doorway – the light Come indoors softly like A cat between your legs When you walk and The dress flows Over the
Convolvulus-age
up the ladder and round the bend Age spirals like a convolvulus Its bells break into the light Catching breath with their beauty But how in the sightless earth Its roots work to a