CLEARING THE DESK

These then are the remnants I leave behind,

unsorted. A rummage sale in drawers.

Anatomical legends, a right-sided handful.

Be mindful your heart is on the left.

Telephone sanitiser, unused.

In case bad-tempered talk needs wiping clean.

Dental film, a selection of sizes, unexposed.

For the exploration of hidden cavities.

One plastic humerus, without its funny bone.

Wave wildly to intimidate disruptive colleagues.

Clips. A copious supply – both paper and bulldog.

Also staples, rubber bands and treasury tags.

Gather with these all the vacuous, self-serving strategies

you’re expected to read, but never will.

Best left casually on display, as if work in progress.

Use the clothes peg if all else fails.

Unopened, in kit-form, a balsa wood glider.

Save until you’ve time to build your own flights of fancy.

A stone. Smooth, rounded and the dead weight of a kidney.

It will nestle in your palm. You may close your fingers around it.

ix.2017

THIS DARK CYCLE

In line at a crossing

we wait for the barrier to rise:

its upswing paused, outside control.

Arrested, teetering,

our gated state is two-wheeled doubt.

‘Talk to us’ the notice says

if things are getting to you.’

When pulsing red turns single green

we will pass this border;

beyond, where streetlamps run out,

shall plunge into the moonless ink.

Unnerved, our widening eyes

cannot discriminate

the ivied limbs, closing over.

What’s known becomes unknown.

Flickering between margins

of bracken bank and leaf-choked swamp,

feeble bike lights fail to see

the path that’s safe not sorry.

A bridge is looming. Until then

wobbly guesswork guides our wheels.

xii.  2017

QUIET NIGHT THOUGHT (a reinterpretation)

Upstairs, my moon-bright bed is lit

with frosty questions on a silver sheet

I look up to watch her beaming face;

lie down my dreams in this sad place.

after Li Bai (701 – 762)

x.2017