Portrait 14

Can you hear the feet tempi
   
     Cut and play rage       slam the chair

              Who coughed up a prism
         after rain


     that tired let one hand drop
                        and heat feathers eyes' edge

          Shout sequences

               and each chance to cop a feel
      then walleyed again

                      with stammered head cassette asleeping

Portrait 13

          Sleepy head curls
are a kept rage

  The shining wheel chair squeaks

    A long face holds
mute humanness

     I found a book full of fallen leaves  They
  fell out
  quietly

Clocks don't want
             to be noticed

        A day's sweat declares itself

     Affronts

What, she says,
            have you got tucked away there

      This head
 has shut up shop

Portrait 12

    Plait
    her
    hair
  and mackerel clouds thicken

           Her teeth split this skin
     white roof of hand
            with ganglion curls saying   up

             The cup's thrown
                  and the big bent
        jack of so and so

        Her black plastic alice band
                 serrated        
                                           not holy

                  Incisors:
               thumb   tip   cut   out

             alive     alive

                    alive

        like a stab in the eye
                   thieved kiss    
    or bursting a blister

iridescent lid dark wickedness

   Sometimes the fits
           look like laughing

Portrait 11

           skylight white
                            bleach corridor

She conducts mute themes
               coming from photographed faces
           of people who are dead

       Come evening, a small whiskey fuming

                            Our Lady of Lourdes

                    her Irishness

            a golden brooch
                 her hands hold
                          closed

Portrait 10

            human   water    falls

             a thinnish mouth

             hands in pockets
                for solitary kickabout

    Old Whiteheaded Villan

                 Autumn chittering

    blackened twig garland

                out the back

                 Brummagem
             vowel music

                Old Age's a bastard
                                      but still
              on scuffed up ball

Portrait 9

 Recite: "I have, of late..."

                        He makes the name
                   resonate: "Shakspere"

 Picture: a paper thin crown held up
                         glitter sticky

             Hands become claws
                   He's a monster
         "That's right"

     From room to room
                 thieving papers              his bliss
            for under the bed

 comical          unmanageable

                 Chucks my chin
             The old roué and the chorus girl

          His slow way
                           slow 
                corroding 
                       slow memory

Portrait 8

 long face
           (his Old Man's face)


         Large eyes flat
                till the bagpipes sounded


      When were you and me together?

      You and me together, have it said

                 
                       Lean in

                       to poverty


 The fits:

               insistence

            energy brightness

                  lambent hands


 Friday last,
            he disappears

Portrait 7

                  You could peel
             the clementine
                        but you ask me to

    service     to and fro

                   saying hello (that is
            touching thumbs
                     or looking longer)

    shown palm with
            mehndi fades

     Little you thumps big him
      where the spine
           is winding down

               growing old
           
                 but this picture you

        You shut the door
                     and have to tell

   Painting with the worn brush
                                   delicately

    You make:
                beautiful, this
             hardly there
                 

Portrait 6

   tonic see saw

how sweet the sound

             shook and stuttered vowels

        singing into there       opening ear
             faces very close

singing aye aye yippee

       an interval's ache
                       plus pulled up time

      fingers touched hardly
   for friend markers

     look clicked for less than
                          then lights out

            hymnal creaks    4am

  This new sign looks like tears

     "I never seen him
             leap about
                     like that before"

          chemical flowers
       DANCING

             music is just
         about everything
                  in half lit hall

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?

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

Portrait 3

    counting the beads you
                         couldn't ever stop

                wooden      colours

                                 her blesséd (sometimes) way

                    her clenched heart

         She sings, full on
                     Where's your mother gone? 

               hurt kindnesses
                                                blinking

        her gathered necklaces
                                  disarming

Portrait 2

                   draws up
               her mouthful
                             of long hair

     Hunched, she            
                              She leans out to

          You're there with stewed meat on blue spoon.

                    DINNER, she says.

    a thumbed table

              a bitten hand

           a chewed film


   crashed    wants     said     loud

         throat     graze


          black long
               long hair

           smile razors moderated world

                                     key scratches

    eyes kick in doors
               black hair and eyes

                 from where
   white zig zag lines
              shoot out from where
        her chair presences

subject ball
   between us goes
  to and fro

        She says, BALL.

           cackle splits and cracks

       a sideways


                 Fits


            The names she's given

     

Portrait 1

    puts his hand on my head
           says, "Head".

    a   large   hand

           Things come in parts or
                        told wholes.

   do up his belt
        says, "Thank you".         Laughs

           (remember, not yours for the getting)

         In that broad mouth
             a    few    thin    delicate    teeth
           hung on         eerie filaments

        not getting the what
 but holding a feel of

say a square with a light on

            shapes that are nice
        have a here and there smell
                                   a taste

            hand in your pocket
                  a pinched lapel

         (comic tenderness)

          Outside the Bowling Alley
       he now shouts, "Car horn".

                    All join in.

             Queries, managed chat,
                  planned fun:
                      all goes off
                 in vanishing gas.

             all gone       Laughs