No Record of Wrongs Love does keep a record of some things— your solitary walks in Coln Saint Aldwyn’s, a precise curl of Virginia Creeper tendrils, vermillion in autumn, the way you carefully smelled horses’ necks beneath the mane back home, velveteen crushes of cornhusks lashed to lampposts Love notes you’ve yet to find a … Read more
Waking Up He had thousands of kodachromes when he died. Nowadays they’d be snaps stored on the cloud, given back tritely as memories by some iphone. Anyway, they went in the bin, regardless of what they meant to him. I have chameleon words, collections of notes, playing the same role: tie it down — capture … Read more
SONNET XIV for Diane Windsor When I was still the husband of the wind — when I was Leopardi-sure I’d never know a woman’s body’s ways — when I was nineteen – when I was Prufrock-positive of mermaids never singing to me, either, of a life without betrothal or progeny – – when I … Read more
Commuting with Baudelaire We are living in a time when there are no gentlemen. So, women stand for hours without being offered any seats. It’ s a privilege which they have laboured for and for centuries, It appears! Madness, I know, but you must respect them. As you watch their small fists tightening on the … Read more
White Bay Park And cows trod on thickened sand, Bow their heads beneath the sun. It’s as if this summer was planned, With days that cannot be done. That sun implores, infects my sight, Surges fire through greying sea, Through my heart and through the night, Perennial, I am allowed to be. Could I spend … Read more
Uaigneas (Dán do m’athair) Crows befriend the bread-handed boy, Squawk and battle for a bite. Metro wires hiss and wheeze, Spite the hills and sun-soaked fields. New York blinks its bloodshot stare, Recalling you and I were there. From azure deli doors, Whiffs of baking bread Flirt with slow-cook sunburn. But now I can be … Read more
live long enuff yoolsee enuff war – yool think this is not what life is for – yool feel all the feels feasibly feelable – yoolbee both heart sleeve-able and heart konseelable… live long enuff yoolhear enuff bang – yool vibe off protest songs yoor parents sang – yoolyawn at the yarns elected folk spin … Read more
Irish Rail Dublin, that old whore, with her piss -stained pavements Abruptly transforms into a woman of a certain station. Such are the, at once, brutal and subtle shifts where In an instant, Hell aligns in an altogether strict Congruence… Like when you climb aboard The final commuter train of the week on a Friday … Read more
Somatotropism My lungs were out of helium, so I wandered out of my anti-memory cell to buy some freedom vouchers. The land, its never-satisfied lips… I remembered every man was his dog (and a mad Englishman.) I remembered being a bumblebee in milk. Agony and honeysuckle. Was I vaccinated against imprisonment? Was I immune to … Read more
Leaf-ladder to the Sky Dusk drums down the harbour, Seagull sirens sound alarms, A quiet motor sings; Shards of mingling words slip away Where huddled houses hug the bay; A fish flops on the scalloped sea, Ripples spreadly ring, Ring, and ring, diminishing, to me: Here are all enchantments reined, Stowed within this compassed, solitary … Read more