Wind whips rain into a lather, suds flop
coating the gunny sacks of chrysalides.
In lamb we trust, mint sauce spooned, vinaigrette,
in dollop, drizzle, cavalier splashes,
and in gravy swilled figure of eights.
Suds slip down in dirt, super, saturated
soil where rose and weed fear to bed in wont
of oblivion, just when you least expect
a dandy bramble jallops the windowpanes.
No rest for the wicked, it tattoos.
looking out…
soft sighs and shrugs, sees
squalid sheets charge hedgeward.
Origin: the sea,
Which enters with flourish, flushed,
proscenium left.
Orange house recedes inland,
Lazy sill whippet sees me,
We conflate
with waving cypress,
All the same:
spraybent.
Upstart blasts
stale room,
hurricane farce of wrappers whorl,
vortex forms
in comet
crater
hemisphere
How they chunter!
Tales of dogs,
chickenshit,
the dank,
the undoable in mud,
steep bare beds,
sheer stony crud.
Sipping soup
Under bivouac
Pigeon holed,
ensconced,
mordant
no spade plunges,
no plant grows.
Rice next year
Paddy fields forever
Roll up your trousers,
sport a lampshade
on your head,
Erect a pagoda
On Glastonbury Tor.
…clear new calm morning
blooms:
bright sky blue, golden glint,
pulsars thrill thawing
laurel leaf and stream.
Let us pause for smoke and prayer…
Teeming sardines in the Arab Sea
A billion starlings over the Fens
Sensing food and predator.
Poor old religion gets another lambast
Courtesy of these withered digits
Hens in the back are revealed as angels,
a blackbird coyly juggles rats
Louche, pleasant, twisted opiate dreams.
The bayou shoulders slow magnolia
Grits for slow, big, muddy river that quivers
Magnificent regardful like a python
Weighing up the yearly weenie
…in the Jacuzzi of good and evil
Lights going out around here. It will be soon.
Two disconsolate blackbirds hop and wobble
on the lumpy lawn of mud runs,
wet dark brown leaves,
and old dog turds of autumn.
Swift smoke streams, light grey wafts
and heavy laden, leaden clouds
rush on the blasting, frantic wind.
Stoic conifers and bare trees bend
and unbend, weave, give and lean.
The rosebush drips heavy fruit, unsteady silver water.
The hens gather silent in their hovel.
Safe as a puffball in a hotpress
wise beggars under feather sacks
in a draughty corner on a damp straw floor.
What is to do today, to what end?
Option plop is number one.
Option fresh coffee is an ambition.
Option edit does me credit.
Other options are optional.
Rabbits and Guinea fowl
Smiley too will play a part.
Frost becomes Frimaire
Tomorrow is Oxford without parking or me.
Remember the Alibi: amputated neck.
Sick note. Be flat. Play doggo. Stay warm.
Cocoon safe baby bunting.
Snug as a mug in a hug.
All is plight.
Begloved hands ring with pain.
Sing song blue.
Little Green Lies.
Miss call: med at four-thirty,
crying along to baby blue,
dead time.
Weeping real tears,
old voices of old friends in the messenger,
dead romans,
Nile vipers, alabaster elephant pups;
dimwit twisted garrets,
dimlit deep sea divers,
cement boots, aquarium skidlids.
Down the lane
at the hanged man’s house
wild beasts drive,
whistle in the woods,
absinthe oglers
naked ladies
paddle in Pull-in’s Pond.
Tears stream down cheeks,
bandanas lattice plaits of stars,
milky ways of cast off
unravelling cloth.
Acknowledge the bible
scribblers on the credits,
disappointed briefs
and wiseacres arrange things
good and proper…warm blooded nappies charm the sinews,
joints glow:
perhaps a cosy nap
before crisp morning
cracks the whip.
On her veranda
a landowner
Exhales
…a gust of codeine cloud
On Parrot Woods West
where buggy water
sits stale
on crowded crow dead flats
a sun limps homeward
wounded in windless
sheeting mist
Grimbeau 