PSALM 1985
she would light candles in every church for him
and skywards send a million orisons
to silt stone sills | and alabaster wings
with luminary pleas made manifest
in smudge and soot | thus would she pester | a pitiless God,
kneel in chapels until her poor knees | split |
cast pebbles on tombs | speak the golden names
of seraphim | she has invoked them all
Gabriel, Raphael | Uriel, Behemiol
and in one desperate moment | Lucifer | who hummed
the tune of Angel Eyes with changed words;
‘Lady, your soul cannot be thrown into the ring’
cloisters echo | with whispered sibilance | and sighs like fires
Lord’s Prayer and Creeds | her chest crossed hourly
by unfailing hand | and still nothing | Nada;
the son is not healed | rosaries are just strung beads
the incarnation | another waiting sorrow.
Beyond the house of God | the universe
the sensuous nappe | of midnight on her skin.
Incense of comet trails | moon’s splendour falls
with unspeakable grace | irradiation of archangels
pointing skywards | the rustle of the stars deafening
the fierce cantata of the planets | it’s all about love, they sing
love | let love be your spaceship.
LOVE IN 3 CREATURES
My Lover is a Slug
The tracks you leave upon me
shine silver in starlight
tracing the flowerbed of my body
with a longing for dahlias.
My Lover is a Scorpion
Curled in the elegant toe of my shoe
you await the tender dawn
with dark, trembling want.
My Lover is a Spider
Darling, as I sleep
you weave endless odysseys
of dreams dark and tensile
with your devouring ecstasy.
NIGHT THOUGHTS OF A ROAD MUSICIAN
What time is 6/ 8 in? | six quavers to the bar!
yeah, but it doesn’t feel like that…
Feel it in 2, feel it in 3
you may do | but how does 6/8 feel?
How does anything feel | how does empathy feel
if it comes from you – and not me?
you love my music, my feel |but what is that feel?
and what’s the fricking point of any feel –
if I can’t feel love for you?
And on the lonely road | you feel
the bumps of worn tyres in potholes | you feel
60 miles in every hour | you feel
the rattle of worn brakes in 4/4 | you feel
the emptiness of advent windows full of laughter
of Christmas scintillating down Regent Street
past Santa Claus to bright applause
standing ovation | motorway service station.
Dawn crawls into dirty bed | there’s tinsel in your hair
from some nameless girl | and you still smell of her.
The 12 sighs of Christmas | well that’s in compound time
earned by carving the endless turkey of night
on dark roads void of infant joy’s delight
lonely cadenza | playing life in 6/8 | you can sing Noel
But it’s not real | so how in hell | does 6/8 feel?
