Rocks

it’s hard to recognise

the shift of virtual plates

inside the mind

the catastrophes stick

the scalding eruptions

& seismic kicks

that leave you for weeks

without skin

this month

the business is more everyday

a cheque to the plasterer

the performance management cycle

a gas meter reading

taking the old computer to the tip

consulting the oracle

of a forgotten god near Islip

these shoes won’t do

dig out the boots from the loft

for the first time in seven years

strike camp with sun singing

the hand is made of so many issues

which believe themselves unique

& at the centre of the universe

in this case are the muscovite

the felspars & the quartz

over on your right

are the ferromagnesian group

such as olivine   hornblende & biotite

behind you are the chlorides     sulphides

iron oxides  & carbonates

  consider the range of density & lustre

colour   hardness  cleavage   &   history

they haven’t always been this cold

in these regions

inhabitants congregate

for key dates of the calendar

saying: let’s unpack the instruments

& knock out some atonal music

the outer surfaces

contain unexpected pressures

when these are locally relieved

the interior shifts

   & something moves towards the surface

along lines of weakness or desire

energies settle in varied ways

silica everywhere you look

acid rock tends to be lighter

with a more pronounced bass

magmatic differentiation

generates barely visible

crystal ladders

if magma cools in great deep pools

it does so slowly

forming plutonic rocks

with large crystals

some larger than your garden

some igneous rocks crack as they cool

studies of exposed sections of the mind

show pentagonal or hexagonal columns

soaring up & downwards to the future

chemical & physical disintegration

precedes temporary reunification

in modified locations through

diagenesis or affection

aspects of the past form clastic planks

you cannot hold in your hands

but may glide or slip upon

in certain atmospheric conditions

metamorphic processes transformed us

into next days that look into the wind & blink

then we stooped at either end of the garden

to ease perfectly good weeds into the breeze

I thought

if it hadn’t come by May

it wouldn’t come at all

three or four years passed

& I stopped looking

at that vacant space

between the garden & the sea

it was 7 years later

as I stood at dusk facing south

hands dumped in my pockets

that the angel

called the song of the earth

turned & glanced this way

I walked through

the meteorite storm

inside my head

I stood upon the patch

of barren ground

where lightning

whipped & smouldered

it felt like changing colour

from the feet up

the scale of outcrop

depends on dip

Millstone Grit

retired from racing years ago

Oxford clay    shelly & oolitic limestones       chalk marls

nodules of chert    all dragged by sluggish troughs of ice

across the base of my lake

lignite

Marmite

natural gas

                                             Durham Dolomite

Dead Sea alabaster       the bed sheets bent westwards

Swedish magnetites

Bohemian metamorphics             Belgian slates

Welsh schist                          movement under the groundsheet

                                                                               angular unconformity

countless varves

             dendrochronological  cartoon characters

               going round in circles

some rocks bathe in the rain

            others swallow streams

                        without so much as blinking

all rock is haunted by run off & spring

most rock resents a boggy hollow

all the coals

a range of slates

the bones of roads

cement

cement & plaster

brick     gravel     sand

stone for milling & grinding

whetstones

salt

phosphates             potash

metal ore

silver   zinc   &     lead            tin & manganese

copper                   iron

platinum               & gold

sensual erosion of graphite

Copyright © Peter Hughes, 2008