Sleeping Dog

Sleeping dog

There was an old dog
a greyhound he had been
sleeping rough behind the
old British Legion building.

He came and nobody knew where
from but people were worried
about that dog.

Once somebody left out
a cage with some food
where the dog goes in and the door
comes down behind him but he
was too smart for
that

and the next morning the food
was still there.

One day nobody saw him again
and I don’t think that anybody has
seen him
since.

Three dreams

Three dreams

 

I dreamt I was a line, a thin line,

a wire stretching in a vaulted room

with brass weights that needed to be balanced

my chin and ankles and the turning

of my torso pulled the

wire and it sprung and I was lifted

from the bottom of my gut

to the very stars of that ancient chamber

I remember wishing before I was an owl

I used to wish that I was an owl

owls did not have to go to school

and I had dreams where I sat

in trees in front of the moon

dreams where I have

worked out how to fly.

It is easy it has always been

easy

and others where I can

run with great gliding strides that

swallow the ground that grab

it to them and throw it

behind, sailing off through

open

air

like hands tugging rope, hand

following hand following hand

I touch the ground only just

enough

to spring off again

And sometimes I can

jump

and float, going forwards I bend

my knees in the air and decide

not to land,

propelled by the small of my back.

I jump, jump, jump, jump

I hold it there, I hold the air there around me

and move through it

Sometimes I go forwards and sometimes

up

in huge arcs

I come down

The wire begins and ends and always

is seeking its middle

the balancing weights stretch it

and the great domed roof holds

arcing the wire to it

awake, the cold clamminess

of sheets clings

with night’s fevered sweats.  

Leaflight

Leaflight

At last the coal is in the grain of my fingers

and under my nails and the smoke works

into the roots of my hair

and the deep crispness of the young day new

and so slightly raw tingling like scratched skin

makes the morning’s darkness no so

and the leaves have been so burning as they fell so

sun and fire and age old red against the dew cleaned green

not yet made mulch by tramping feet

I could weep at it the joy the joy

the joy and the moon burns

with the leaves colours humming and singing

softly in the air it rises up

with stars and planets and everything is

everything is everything

and at last my hand holds an axe and my heels

a swiftness waiting lifting in my limbs and my hand

holds a leaf holds a water droplet

in the crease of its spine supple yet

supple yet the mist which holds

the springing deer the bleakness blue and green and brown

the washed land the pressed earth holds

warmth in my palmprint in my palm 

the lines of my finger

the lines of my father

the fire of the falling leaves

November 2012

Dawn flocks

Dawn flocks

I heard a flight of ducks

or geese yammering they intruded

on my dream, sounded like

human voices a human voice

that cried help

I suspect in fact it is

a fox, that sounds like a child

crying close in the borage

Before I was woken by

the huge laugh of a crow so

near I could feel the

dampness of his

black morning feathers, hear

the thwump of his vanishing

wings that brushed my forehead

cold toes

going to the window I can see

in the first sun and the clean light

and still of morning still not

the yelping flock

in truth there are some gulls

they squabble over something over

the shimmering bristling

of grass beneath the yet

unmuddied sky still

fresh from the burning

cool of stars

I look for the fox

There is none

They die down

The many greens reveal themselves  

Sparrow

Sparrow 

See the sparrow with his

little heart, little heart and little

throat

that babbles

and ripples with notes

like smooth stone ringing

walls sheer and singing

today there is a seeming mist

from behind the trees leaves

breathing a sigh upward

from the mouth the white sky

heavy with leaves lungs

lying suckered to twigs

like something fallen from the nest

breath picked and carried by passing wind

the boreholed core that leaves

dreams skinless

in the day’s racing light

the sparrow sits

his single note on the tree tops

little lungs, little green lungs

singing to the unpainted vanishing

whiteness this morning overhead.