Sunday 13 September 2015

O Willow

From Smethwick to Wolverhampton, Birmingham Canal


Piebald pony in sham heat
roped to a lamp post
on a Tipton verge

*

It isn't love if it isn't love
goes the switch box

*

Bullrushes
compact
dark
on pen stems

definite

*

Coseley Tunnel
kept air sharpens
with droplet calcium

The front light's swamped

*

Forgive-me-nots

He's crouched by the bank
with a thin stripped branch
as if half divining

Weeds in the water
are half seen
Are they creaking?

Crickets are all
a shook
their organ legs

We PAN, with slowly streaming weeds

*

and blackberries blacken
past black to rot dust

*

At the outskirts
inflammable tanks
will dissolve
halfarsed feathered mysteries

*

well there is
no rain just
whitened sky