Life was all cream or crop, whatever words
were shored against the deal, the cream can prove it.
The crop exult to see all questions bubble
up to a retort, that quibbling teacher
dying on the state somewhere can suck it.
The cream will dance grotesquely and confirm
it’s champion to behold, they know the crop
don’t like life to be anything but champion.
The cream will fan the cards and let the crop
pick, the card they pick’s the card the cream
wanted picked, whatever card was picked.
The crop have been believing for so long
they don’t believe, they know, have known so long
they act, their deeds were done before you shared them.
The cream throw up their hands, but who are they
to tell the crop their cream from crop? The crop
are down with that, whatever shit-bird said it.
The cream deny they did, they’ve got appointments.
The crop are gathering for a final question
everything is hanging on, they won’t
stand much longer either and why should they,
the answer’s been in place since there were questions,
and waits with arms akimbo, like equipment.
The Forecast
A day of rain
they forecast came
and thrown along
the window pane
was every drop
that couldn’t stop
but dabbed across
the light in step
until like life
all slackened off
whose time was up
who’d toiled enough
so that was that
no matter what
the forecast said
they forecast what
they thought would be
were wrong like me
a fraction out
so utterly.
Biography
He seized the day and shook it as it passed.
And so it passed and so he seized the night
and as he shook it cried I seized the night!
and so it passed.
He took an ancient play and moved the pieces
here and there until he’d made a play
about a man who took an ancient play
and moved the pieces.
It was his year, it was to be the year
it all took off, he had a brilliant spring
and wrote all summer of the brilliant spring
he had that year.
A song was playing which would always now
remind him of those days, when it came on
tonight he said it used to, whack it on
it doesn’t now.
I love it though, he said when it was done.
I always will and all the stars looked down
as they’ll be doing when you set this down
and that’s that done.
Poem As Harbour
Home to this after time away
he was greeted like he never went,
no matter the sights he says he saw,
no matter the days he claims he spent.
The whiteness smiles a smile as wide
as all the seas he howls he sailed
and holds his lone indignant cry
where lone indignant cries are held.
Milestone Song
for Geraldine
Make light of this number,
reduce it to rumour,
outlast it in summer,
outgun it with humour.
You do that whatever
gets hurled in your general
direction, you ever
made shit so ephemeral,
shabby and local,
so easy to figure,
so pitiful, fragile,
framed as a picture
or family portrait
or gossip or x-ray,
you sail on beyond it,
your yay to the naysay,
lighter than numbers,
wise to your sorrow,
kind to your yesterdays,
up to tomorrow.
The Ledge
for Alfie
Woken again by nothing, with this line
already at my back, I thought of you
at twenty, as you are – which passed somehow
while I was staring – thought how yesterday
you said you wanted to be young again,
which left me with this nothing left to say
that’s woken me. You are, you are – what else
does father wail to child – though wailing it
he’s woken with six-sevenths of the night
to go – you are – look I will set to work
this very moment slowing time myself,
feet to the stone and shoulder to the dark
to gain you ground – if just one ledge of light
you flutter to, right now, rereading that.
Daylight Saving
for Jim Maxwell (1928–2016)
Sib, they’re considering doing away
with daylight saving. I wanted to tell you
in one of the fora
we wander together,
neither one literally here. Anyway
I don’t know the reason. The folks of the morning
and folks of the evening met at a table
and at the same moment
rose in agreement,
doing away with daylight saving
and nor was I there to say hold your horses
as you would have said and so would your father,
we three in a line
having doubts at the same time
wasn’t to be, no one sat in our places.
No one spoke up for the scent of the hedges,
our marathon hide-and-seek going on
when the sun should be set
and we shouldn’t be out
and the ribbon of light down the curtains for ages
infinite really in that there’s no ending
anyone’s showed me. No one spoke up
for the thrill of the way
the last shreds of a Sunday
clung at the gate like their father was coming
to ferry them home. All gone if you look
but no one is looking. No, Sib, they are thinking
of doing away
with daylight saving,
won’t miss the beetling advance of the dark
on your boys standing up in our bikes heading home,
they won’t miss the witches just missing the trees
when it’s not even five,
for whatever they save
they will lose as they do, it’s not going to be Time,
who knows why they hàd daylight saving at all?
I’m just glad we had it. I’m sure you explained
you’re explaining now
and I’m listening how
I have generally listened and largely will
for the love in a sound. They are doing away
with daylight saving and where shall we meet?
now God I don’t think so
is shutting those windows
and locking the house like a yesterday . . .
We shall meet where the light and the clock are askew
and the language has scrambled to say what that’s like
and it’s thinking it might
let the space play the light
and it might let the space play the other thing too
the what-was-it-called, two hands in a ring
and one pointed to there and one pointed to there,
there-there was its point,
who knows where it went?
howls the language again and goes back to its darning
and back to St Francis we go, you and I,
where we voted that second last time you went out.
Won’t say how that went,
there’ll be time better spent
and light better shed to go wandering by.
The Light You Saw
Short, and to a point I shan’t foresee.
This poem ends, you can see if you dip your eye.
Dip it and lift it again and be here with me,
knowing it’s got to, pocketing goodbye.
Think what form it takes, the light you saw.
Will it darken with
