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
