The Dark Iron-Tree

North wolf-door belongs

To the Devil in songs;

The dark iron-tree

Born of dead-sky-sea

Fell through fire, slate

Thick boar-skull plate

And dragon-crest helm

Into the Albion magic realm.

Playful

Some playful god

Has spilled warm cider

Across the sky;

Giving orange edges to

Grey flamenco-skirt clouds.

Phantoms of the

Dance of night –

Left exhausted, happy below –

Appreciate the mischief.

The Spirit of Melinda

Alone in a boisterous crowd;

A mob expecting spectacle:

Thunder, fury, blood,

Maybe more ….

On The Rain Roads

Back on the rain roads,

Stung by defeat –

Oh, how it hurts,

Life’s not fair.

Stuck on the off-ramp,

Little left in the tank,

Stuck in the grey masses

Without direction.

Harvard; Leading the Blind

“See the statue here …?”

The step-on guide drones;

Way she mouths it,

It’s not a question

“One statue, three lies here,”

She isn’t speaking

So much as reading a script.

The Wrong Kind

Wharf-pool water –

Century’s stagnant mirror –

Surface made of shattered

Butcher’s knife blades and

Shards of guillotine in a

Brick-sided drawer:

I Still Don’t Know

All-day long tiny percussive fists of

Persistent rain have pummelled, nagged,

Raised the best of marvellous memories:

Those that I thought I didn’t need,

In the After

What somebody said –

And, oh how we laughed –

Was the turning point’

The point of no-return,

Looked only like so much

Dust on the highway;

Let’s Raise A Glass

Let’s raise a glass,

Maybe more,

To the double-intensity,

Up on the stands,

Handlebar gladiators;

To the front-rows,

No-space tiptoe dancers.

The Way It Goes

The way it goes

And away she goes

On a bright-eyed,

Finely shod horse

Past the station bridge,

Along the path to the past;