A Ladder

Bus note 64

       Vague
       clouds.
       Coldness.
Morning prayers, week one:
       handed; heart; 
       eat this bread;
       broke; splendour.
Shift the world clutter
out from here
        [Striking the breast,
        exit clumsily].    

Portrait 5

 cortical folds showing
                 on a kindly head

     the feelings swung
               in set out space

"Duncan, I'm having a fag".

               off with his blue flat cap his crown

  He says/ he doesn't say
               what's what

            flickering

                a rum and black
     in Weymouth                     drunkenness

         water    water           soft crushed face

       We eye each other up
    knowing the trick
            and keep the laughing     almost hid

"Goodbye, All!"

"Farewell!"

"Adieu!"

       A scratchy music hall number
                          playing out somewhere

    What time's home?

Bus note 63

        Top deck
        side lights:
a seizure trigger;
neon spectral shimmer;
        false movement;
        backwards wave.
Her same-difference
piebald hair over there.
        The corner:
        Bearwood High St.
        strewn
        with bruised fruit.

Parrhesia

For Tom

Hawthorn green
is green so here
I am, still
stood

Think of the bird you hear

Summer blisters slowly

at odds

dropped words

One narrow yellow beak
telling what's left    

the eyes

black    dew    drops

hid

Bus note 62

Alcohol vapours
from wrung out bodies.
        Everybody shines
        and sweats non-charm.
Heatbruised to stupidity
and gracelessness
        so bitterly
        the skinny pen thinks here.
How to be kind
and to feel it?
        Ball point
        eases out
        black ink
        on feint squared grid

     

Abandoned boats on Rathlin Island

Smethwick Fire

Chinese lantern floats and stops
at detritus peak till smoke funnels up
and out brown grey from the plant.

Later at City Hospital some plumes still
showing up thinner from Aberdeen St.

Babyfather with mirror sunglasses
pours out slow Dragon Stout libation
on tarmac where it won't sink in.

Upaways a kid does a wide arc skid
on scratched up bike oblivious and young
wiry in careful quiet. He is too small.

Bus note 61

Ants in formic (maybe) happiness
crawl along the red bar
above the seat in front
        and the boys and girls
        of Challoner's
        exit the top deck
led by spurious
and charming logic
to catch the bus behind.

Portrait 4

      The coat gets thin for Spring

          codes for between

        Her brow figuring
                    below the heavy fringe

  This is the way along

    Yellow cat face balloon    
                             clutch of trust

             (a sometimes ruse)

                      great tea stain up front
                                        green hex cup gleam

                  Tartan, for the corner:
                           puce and magenta;
                                         cream and pencil black

                 This is the way along

                                her anger eyes

           the foot to foot music
                            pivoting: the balance aches

    She hits and then hits and then
                    reaches for your hand

            The home time tempo

         where's the shape of before