even now

 nothing, you think it's nothing

just another idiot in the unfortunate wash cycle

gone by, past, over like an annoying parrot

dead in its cage at dawn

crushed by the planes

your instincts may be partly right

to close it down, shut it off
stifle it, kill it forever

just another stupid passer-by

walking down the same road forever

with you never at the end of it

this is my mathematics

my calculus

starting with such factors

always resulting in zero

always so filled with the memory

of the starting

of the world sometimes so full

of empty promise

.

aeroplane of what we were

Call me Aeroplane (for CF)

holder of the world altitude record for humans

higher than the highest-flying birds

I look down upon vultures and geese

lowly in the jetstream

from this height

my eye a satellite, a lens, the all-seeing

iris of a spiralling raptor

I see your lengthening shadow

retreat from the stone wells

sacred to Bedouins and desert travellers

strewn about with ribbons

grown weary with calling

to your deep reflection

to your loss

like some great catch

in the throat

like grief, like wind, like a cry

which echoes upon high

knowing now

that I can never land again

sick with height

call me Aeroplane

My poetry is dying from the waist down. One has to deal with this somehow. Here's a picture of me blowing an imaginary trumpet on the Bowder Stone:

Some Fairies in Blue Scoots

ONE DAY some Fairies from outside became

in Blue Scoots to peel off the Wallpaper tear down

the Lights unwire everything even everyone's Hearts

in clouds of hacking plaster dust and the Fay Fury of our

Organs of lead

unplugged on the wet Pavements outside

shivered the Rain began to rise-oh

what have we done but then the Windows and O 

the Bells began the Bats and Rats

have you ever seen this?

in Startles of scooting blue Arrivals began 

in such strange Gaits we parted from the Scene

again in the Flurries 

(think again of love and what)

our little scaredy Hearts 

might beg for unfairying so they might and what

of it now for surely?

.

Mr Trump on Sunday

attached at either end to hoses and pumps

in accordance with the terms of his punishment

like a great wilted thing slowly forcing itself

into life motivated by some primal need for fodder

Mister Trump inflates, his puckers evening and

ironing out, his cellulite smoothing, his face

taking on a forced fat smile; he rises, unsteadily

shaking, quivering and pink, naked, foolish,

regretful at last; he ascends over the rooftops

like the vast rear end of a fattened autumnal hog

propelled by uncertain farts; higher he climbs,

observed by all viewers everywhere, as children with bows

and arrows with suckers and pea-shooters

attempt to knock him down like a blimp filled

with gas that may just ignite and crash 

upon the grass amongst the cats and sandwiches

to scare the spectators, each of whom 

has paid a heck-of-a-lot of money to be here 

each of whom is a little scared of what might 

happen next; but all that happens is his grin

gets bigger; his bottom balloons out into the clouds

and he drifts away to take his place upon high

in the starry pantheon of people we no longer

give even half a shit about, but would still like

to see die in our heart of hearts

.

 the vastness

of what we cannot be

stretches before us

 for my first few seconds

every morning

you are still alive

 

 these huge ferns

at the riverside

how vigorous, how vivid
how ancient in their ratio
just waiting for us
to fuck off

.

do not for one moment
let your heart stop
for there are miracles yet

to endure 

.

 

 Deadness all the way. No empathy or human feeling beyond raw reptilian appetite. Oh, and maybe a cold, dead fury. He's very dangerous.

 in the autumn floods 

yellow-white turnips

bob like skulls

rope swing

all night long the beck
the river, the stream
forever
the dark, the bright light
the rush, the rope
the parapet, the jump
the rocks the death the ripples
on and on
Alfie says get that rope down
I believe in him
I saw him first emerge
and we swing again
but only I will swing that close
to the huge drop
into the river and its black flood
that's my job, isn't it
to risk death always
with such love
that they can be scared
of nothing?

.
a black and white
explosion of sun and air
two feathers falling
.

the pumpkin people

the pumpkin people have no souls
they sit by riverbanks in the spray
oh my, they say

the pumpkin people are athletic
and will jump over your rooftops
even if you don't like it much

some of them collapse
into pumpkin heaps
wailing at the roadside
crying for their interiors

splattered by fast cars

but just one lightning flash like this
and a pumpkin person shoots by
in a great pumping bang

zenith lightning waterfall disaster

it says

oh my again

don't you want to be
the disastrous pumpkin people
with pumpkin heads
and pumpkin toes?

all night the light played
around my door
and moths upon the wing

at dawn I went to the river
where last I saw the moon

Coronavirus conspiracy limerick

the Chinese have loosed new diseases
from mutant bats cooked in their freezers
they want to destroy us
and then to employ us
as zombies to kill our lord Jesus!

.

All that I can't forget

what sheets our sheets all that waterfall
of attempted forgiveness
an owl hovers in the blue darkness

in the brake an eruption of nothing
just a moment, nothing again

oh just a moment

never more, though, never
how
can such
neverness
be

when the sun still wears hats
and the moon
still breaks
every moment

like a far-off baby
that rides, crying

on the red shouts
of wolves
?

.

We are the Pumpkin People

(it was the wrong world because)

every time we hopped out
of our rabbit hole together
we collided
and still concussed
demanded to know
who are you
why are your teeth in my mouth
and where are the balloons?

now our balloons are dead as pumpkins
with no candles licking light within

.