TRAPPED

Though bent this way and that, my stem unbowed

is not yet blown out. On wind I’m waiting

my discharge: a seed globe of beginning,

held in hundredfold even feathers proud

and parachute-ready, to jump as crowd.

Breathless for that stronger, candle-snuffing

puff a child who pauses will instinctive bring

to spread, on lawns about, my germ dust cloud.

Too late. By pensive fingers now I’m gripped

and dipped. In glassy gaol my frailty caught,

forever fixed, an ageless unwrapped fate.

A lucid gift, admired as much for weight

of workmanship, to blustery papers brought.

Through resinous skill, see my clock is stopped.

xi. 2015

AGAINST THE GRAIN

How sand piles up, here at my door.

Strong winds carry countless skipjack granules,

bouncing like beach-balls, from the shore.

Checked by picket fences yet marching still,

there is no way to hold it back.

Reaching through keyholes, it creeps over sill

then once inside spreads everywhere.

Infiltrates the floorboard gaps. Drowns the joists.

Skin-scratching, smothers my armchair.

It mounts and mounts: recasts staircase as dune,

gets swept in corners, swallows light.

Sand-blind, its inert mouth becomes cocoon.

Should the bell be buried by this grit,

guests are warned – 'bring spade'. Mine waits in the hall:

soon I must dig my own exit.

 

 v.2015

 

 Pushing Out The Boat #16, 2021

BEING IN THE PRESENT TENSE

Today I am not cabbage white,

tearing holes in a web, my flutter trapped.

Today I am spider, binding wings in a bundle.

 

Today I am not sparrowhawk,

pestered, driven from my treeline patrol.

Today I am jackdaw, a single-handed mob.

 

I am not today eye-line over prison wall.

Today I am poky bookshop,

my stacked spines tense to touch, spellbound.

 

Today, as one of six magpies,

I bossed an empty children’s park.

Tomorrow I shall be the glint of sun on its railing.

 

iv.2015