A fence post marks the line of a roadway on the downs Defunct it’s now the arbour of the red termite The waisted beetle and the grey woodlice Rotted from below by fungi and the microbe swarm And from above by weeping cloud and sunlight in an iron bath Old iron pins are burning in its heart And its sundial shadow marks the hours of its agony A hitching post for butterflies and the swivel fly It’s outlived the iron bracing by its side And a milk white daisy is growing at its base
I have looked upon the face of love How beautiful it is Complete in its entirety The template of integrity, Exuding nectar for the joy Of propagating replica Of purest untuned frequencies A symphony of clarity
The mistral still blows the browning corn husks Away into that dark green slimy pool Their passing their days in slow decay Waiting for the silence of the burnt out stars! The black disorder of the unnumbered universe Yet we have lived. What is this consciousness of life?
As children swoop to pick their posies All pretty peace and pleasure They play now where the shadows lap But just before the requiem of dawn A hare was broken by the gleaming fox And on a bloodstained pigeons breast a weasel supped.
There stands a golden moment on a winter’s afternoon Where across the shadowed snow sounds a clear and brittle tune The Blackbird or the Songthrush the Greenfinch or the Lark Or could it be the Nightjar that strums a mellow harp The eye sees only starkness and recalls the soft spring sounds It is a cats paw playing among the frozen mounds
Where shall the blossom fall when darkness shades away the scented May buds? When sunlight burns among the cherry leaves and strips the smiling youth of energy and grace Around those feet those petals heap on heap Transfixing him in perfumed splendour That in a soft dark voice lures lust It is a bud within him ripening apace Yet to flower in tumultuous peace
This scented anticipation holds him in its grip And so he waits a fruit without a pip.
