London

We took a bus to Hackney Wick,
And found the place was made of brick.
The day after, for a lark,
We rode a train to Richmond Park.
In Woking, we nursed our pains,
And got aboard a car to Staines.
Then at Kew we caught a boat,
And down the Thames we did float.

For Alexandra

I think to lie in Pachysandra,
Then ink a line to Alexandra.
While I wonder if I should,
It occurs to me to send Boxwood.
Perhaps I should try another genus,
And line my bed with a Southern Venus.

Celestum

What do I hear,
when I hear voices?
Are they mine or yours or someone else’s?

Or are they shells, ghosts, cast off homes,
mistakes of language,
things that were said, but never done.

What a pleasure to watch the wind,
 . . . lift then catch the curtain,
and send a curl running across its breadth . . .

So a crab dashes across a rock before a wave.

A seething mind boils, cools
Ideas explode, send a thousand sparks showering . . .
Crust cracked, bleeding molten rock.
Late day sky and coral, turn green, of limes.

.

Grief

Grief bleeds from the shoulder,
manna for young men.
Grief swirls in the gut,
a knot that can’t be untied.
Grief stops at the hips,
loses itself in love.
Grief bleeds from the shoulder,
like so many words.
Useless to me . . .
manna to young men.