So cold
There must have been a reason
Frozen ground
There may be underlying treason
No child
Where did we leave him
Mute of joyful sound
Where were we yesterday evening
The trees
Still taller with a statue
Bare knees
Barer still if I could catch you
Scaffolding pole
Spans across two pillars
Plays a supportive role
To your, unsuited, emotion killers
Check it out
Look up the hotel reservations
Go walkabout
Find the solace of the deserted patients
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I dreamt of the young woman
With sun-tanned thighs
In a short white skirt
Just as the Prince Regent’s
Royal Pavilion had reopened
Along the south coast
I dreamt of the same woman
Talking excitedly, with my
Leather jacket over her shoulders
Just as the first evening
Drew to its end
On the university campus complex
I dreamt of this young woman
Asking should she and her family join me
She probed in an enquiring yet positive way
Just as the money was running out
Before the new cheques
Had begun to land
I dreamt of that young woman
Never once coming to my works
Nor to our Christmas parties in London
Just as the time was nigh
To close off
The latest chapter
The seventh book
On the seventh shelf
Is a book by Paul Muldoon
The seventh poem
Is The Cure For Warts
The first line is:
Had I been the seventh son
Of a seventh son
Now, you can say what you like
About coincidences
But it is a poem where death
And death’s cure raise their heads
On page seventy-seven
Sits a poem entitled
The unicorn defends himself
I feel that It would be best to leave it at that
Today’s still-life
Is a plate, painted
With apple, with blossom
A cup, also painted
A hunting scene
With horsemen, dogs, a fox
The plate sits on top
Of a book of selected poems
By Anna Akhmatova
Which itself sits on top
Of an almost blank sketchbook
From Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Two Harris-Tweed coasters
Complete the scene
Atop the small oak table
No more five AM departures
No more falling asleep at the wheel
During the four hour drive
To the south-coast workplace
Yes, the consultant told me
That the damaged thumb nail
Was a sign of trauma
Either physical, or psychological
I though have no memory of such events
Some things you see
Are often easily discarded
Whilst others just go on and on and on
What do you see in me
What do I see in you
What does someone else see
In a linkage about to be broken
No more five AM departures
Yet still falling asleep at the wheel
Caught up by the tiredness
Caught up in those dreams of yesteryear