I.
Already browning leaves
bask in focussed warmth:
the definition of sunlight
held in hard-edged shadows,
which slant bars of night
across the furrows.
I squeeze the most
out of time remaining:
removal of crumbs
from arcane elevations
with dampened fingers, thumbs,
and expectations.
Leaving is the absent word
on a torn page:
smoke in a blind spot
where one can’t be found -
trusting footsteps do not
follow you around.
II.
Taking a breather:
I turn the block to its corner, and back.
Retracing routes to a dead reckoning
of climb-downs, compromises,
and short-lived triumphs.
To stay is to swim,
to drink the poisoned river.
Limbs stretch, pull, kick and glide,
emerging silent for a year
beyond the point of no return.
Catching traffic at a halt,
I scuttle by, green lighted.
Place a coin at the bedside
should the ferryman not hear my rhyme.
Always there’s a fare to pay.
III.
Hung up on tenterhooks
a wet blanket of doubt dries:
the masks of here and there,
two-faced, waiting on a word.
Leaf-fall as rain soaks away.
The shouted team-talk of six-a-sides –
lunch hours played out
in swearing, sweating echoes.
Parking meters promise
“free use of unexpired time”;
I plot reappearances
to the rhythm of wheel on rail,
and doze in grubby compartments.
Sunlight and shadowed passages –
the clear-cut choicelong made, long unrealised.
IV.
Pressure on a button then,
for drawn-out if becomes when
in the blink of a moment.
Familiar faces, soon no more
than unsharp recollection,
count these eight years down to days.
I am my own dissector,
measuring mixed sentiment
with a metre length ribbon;
And seeking some balanced view,
which neither labels nor betrays,
is mere shift I’m working through.
Sliced strand by strand, the stale knots
loosen; expose my parting shots:
Home again. Whole again. Home.
viii - xi . 2000
With open arms, unripened June
reaches skyward where criss-cross runes,
like cloudy kisses, vaporise.
Approaching our meridian
on wheels, I duck its overhang,
gaze through windows and hurry past;
untaken timelines, glimpsed and gone
in the passage between stations.
Deep sat, my crows feet eyes backtrack,
echo distant, tunnel vision.
In its shoebox a photo fades -
lover’s keepsake of gilded years -
and there before you first fetched breath,
all mock demure, your mother smiles.
Youth supposes endless encores.
But leant on wall, hands tucked behind,
the image speaks of no return:
leaves me to plumb that pool of genes
for common features, weaving stitches
out of scars. The hidden birthmark
ageing, losing definition.
Decades later, from time to time,
the disjoined stories rendezvous,
make cameo appearances
along the riverbank. I'm perched
in blustery spitter spatter
on a barstool with espresso:
scanning the walkways' lit parade
to fit, in teatime’s suck tide, each
quick step in its place. Yet skirting
sentiment until - as five chimes -
out of the grey you stride, across
the bridge between us, into view
all heels and legs and brimful
of confidence. Neck like a pillar;
bold as once I was, decades since.
Then marching off to the nearest,
noisiest pub, we talk full tilt
and reason you've reached half my span.
So from here on our ratio narrows:
as day dims slowly might-have-beens
get overthrown, while shared things grow.
