whole songs crash into the garden
black swifts leave the island

words unsung
make goldenrod
and the late
shout of the sunflower
every solo
a dialogue with masses
of petals


.



to make preparations

            the frog who fell in the waterbutt
            we have moved
            his hipbones sticking up
            he considers the undergrowth
            preparing to vanish

and that those preparations have an end
a casting off:
            all walls built
            all trees hugged

to find a word for the universe

to find a word in ourselves
that carries this garden always

day of frog-gazing
the boy wants to put him in a jar
fetches the jar
the girl points at the frog
not her first
the boy brings the jar closer
we discourage him
everyone watches the frog
who lets us stroke his back
which is pale brown
spotted with dark brown
his eyes could be worn in the ears
of a queen

as a whole and single thing
as every thing
as a moment of tide-shape
calligraphy of waters
the great writing
something
even in the ceaseless motors
as if matter had been poorly advised
all this passing passes
the shadow-willow moving
its making tigerskin of us
of grasss
of stone
everything exchanging identities
we are stained
with day

            when he was a baby
            each night for weeks
            he slept on my chest
            this shows in his love of hugging me
            though he has forgotten it
            with his sprinting mind
            (as i in my anger forget

            and cannot forget

2 pens at all times
notebook
keys
a little money
credit cards
a jacket with plenty of pockets
strong shoes
my glasses
a small quantity of weed
a lighter
a saxophone
a word for the universe


.



colour/distance/feeling

shape/texture/separation

all this saw i

passing torn connected mists
not unfriendly but lost
all that is familiar lost
into castles
small asteroids hacked at
over centuries
recycled and collapsed
in grey sheds
where otherness is reassembled
heartless addictive novelty items

but the silhouettes passing over orange
in a glass chute
are burnt umber lacking what searches
into us
            so lovely
            into us
                    mother
            us with light forgiving
the roofless laboratory of roofs

played Bemsha Swing here
on a sunny day
or here (demolished) perhaps
Blue Monk what fills
this gathering of trash?

this air paid me
sang with cold hands
tell me now what
is
    precisely
                over?
all the tunes persist
all their variations

looking away
            as though all torn
from each other
            all
torn one from the other
our long grief everywhere
spotless maths
of the dusk city


.



the fairground lights in the rain
make a complex
undersea dimension
of happenings
of stillness

            a bell not a bell
            a bell of light
            sounding
            endless vibration
            everything rides upon
            cars
            pedestrians
            the vast
            dark columns of the station
            the past
            rides upon

dark reflections swim down in the tarmac

(i wanted to tell the connecting
how an image falls into us all of us
to bring all those rainlights out of time

exteriors bellow for me
huge interlocking brief coalescences
spiral descent of diverging stories
like a match lit
its scent inhaled