a chasm

the
worm
in the gut
of the bird
on the wind,
soaring back
in time (good
time goes only
bye) to ground:
a patter & slap
of crap
on the gravel
or better
yet the grass /
the poem, it-
self a simile,
is like that,
I suggest /
my every
memory
is thicketed
with it: the un-
relenting weather
where I was, trailing
through my
body, through
my mind / when
romping round
the woodland diaries
of long-dead Gilbert
White, all will-
fully bewitched
by swifts – while tousled
monarchs, elsewhere,
quivered in the docks –
& by (my point
precisely) worms / if
lost, he said, from
the economy of
nature, our mute,
tenacious cousins
underfoot would leave
a chasm most
lamentable, for they
(he saw) are the
untiring promoters
of vegetation, per-
forating mud-
wards, loosen-
ing the soil (the
very earth) for
rain / my god
the man could
write (as
well as look) / I
swam, the day
I jotted that,
in rain: a gentle
sheet of sleet,
billowing the flat
of the sea / then pedalled
home, restored,
for chopped
potato soup
& steaming leeks,
a curl of fresh-
picked coriander
in the whorl /
a wild, I wrote,
& wind-blown light
the clouds an
intermittent (sharp-
ly) blue / what
of it? / the inci-
dentals matter / past
the railway line
a stand of trees
a grey wind shushing
then (&
then) the metal
sheen of waves: when
I wake at dawn
the pane is flecked
with salt / invent
the future (spool
it out) / the great, for-
gotten ghost, Sankara,
wanted that (I do,
or try to do, believe
the dead), his
rebel cap aslant,
trading in
the presidential merc
for scrap:
a symbol
of the age /
his nineteen
eighty seven
hitman, suavely
(in the photograph)
attired, was
yesterday con-
demned in sad-
to-say absentia /
we must (young
once-upstanding
Thomas, smiling
still) dare to
make the future:
from the rust-
heap (left) of
what we have /
just thirty seven,
drowned in
blood, the hungry
bullets shoaling
in between his ribs /
we share, you
see, the world
& now the poem /
so wobble out &
wade the cold, the
water this time
drifted through
by light, a soak
of sun, your silhouette
awash below you:
in the geometries
of depth / this
tidal town I
hibernate beside
is great / (I hope
it lingers longer
than the seis-
mographs
predict) / include
the miscellaneous /
buy stamps (for
N.C., Durham) / the
disunited kingdom
looking grim, ad-
mittedly: white jolly
Boris guzzling
the trough / I’m
glad (a gloat) to
be not English
here, hunkered
in my seasoned
nook, burrowing
for words – though
most of every-
thing looks
(better) clad
in hush: a twilit
noiseless-
ness, say, neither
glib nor
meretricious / ha! /
the lingo
I desire,
the jingle
I require
(shhh…) /
at seventeen
I patterned
poems with out-
sized robin-
prints: a glut
of turned earth
brought you in / a
“glut” of sens-
uous(sententious)
ness, perhaps, though
I like the flitting
robins when
they shine / at
twenty nine
I grew (stony-
eyed &) dumb
sighting finches
in the glass, fur-
iously dancing
by the window
where she lay (my
gentle gran) / a
body hollowed
out & pale, flounder-
ing for breath, her
kindness (even)
taken when
she died / per-
manently gone / an
early summer
blossom shook
(with light) when
the quiet
box we put
her in
went down
(the mud, the
rock, the
buried never-
deep) to
sleep / the
incidental
matters / like
a wren’s heart-
beat, or
breathing seed,
a whisper tak-
ing flower
wherever
there’s a need,
& the spring-
returning showers
as I stooped
to kiss her cheek /
a little lyric
grief: a life
in smither-
eens / time
to (always)
flow(ing)
on