Poems

1.

Anywhere’s more homely
than this field day to mortality,
accumulating severances
that wrangle distance
like before and after’s rosary of rue.

So, summoned by that call across the wide
And complicated city, pressed
And yet reluctant to arrive,
We found among the ranks of the distressed,

This cactus looks as if, on a reef,
it could be neighbour to sponge, equally at ease
under the sea – or strange as some tentacled hydra
on the window ledge, free
of quickening leaves.

Digging in the garden I found a moth
albinoed on a piece of bark by the fence.
Those were my radiation days; it was good
to lay down the spade and kneel in the soil.

He has his medley nearly ready. He has pieced together
his own fantasia, even if just from the sound of an owl
regurgitating a pellet of bat fur, a park ranger’s
jangling keys, the creak of cable strain when bored,

Does the for lease sign speak of anything
else than the failure of something; just as
the desert required the lake to dry. Each
dark window waiting to be turned yellow

Wisps of smoke, lamplight on manuscripts.
Pages fanned across an oak stool.
The hearth absorbs the stain of living.

In my dream I was surrounded by seraphs
wearing morning suits, looking at me
quizzically in the crowded Parliament. Then I was being chased
by a Russian mountain lion who drooled a lot

your passport is out of depth     keep a code in a quadruplicate place
drop it into a box or a cloud     to renew your password enter
answers only you know the questions to     family secrets

Feel it even now: such stillness
and yet – there

they are, again:

lights in blue
air, daylight