Here to take a short vacation
With my book: The poetics of space
The helicopter flies low overhead
The camouflaged sound of the Royal Marines
A picture; a print, in the style of Monet,
But pink, is reflected in the window
And in the mirror, and in the screen
Of the ubiquitous institutional television
Later I will arrive where two rivers meet
Where the moorlands waters plunge
Into the fast flowing ravines
Then onwards to the beach, to collect
A few pebbles, a photograph, a memento
Feet tingle, most every other day
Warm in winter, burning up from the inside
Personal global warming, in or out of season
Long term, short term plans cast aside
Treading on streets and pathways
Moorlands, meadows, and motorways
Huddling, against the wind and rain
Shoulders turned down for the first time
Certain of supposition
Neglect of evidence
Unshaken, until the breeze
Lifted the skirts
Of the west wind’s mind
Reed flesh, heed mesh
Hands, bland, seen lingering
Green sting, cruel fool
Rain pursues flues and panes
Brain moves loves again
Day returns, burns grey
Rotting ferns die away
Tent breeze, relent, at ease
Bound thought, round taut
Air aware, fled to dread
Server-lad not so sad
Kissed; half prejudiced
Creed indeed, hand glad
Half empty motorways
Cargoes half way to ports
All night the quiet roar
Echoes the monotonous drawl
Lodges with wallpaper
With TV's and electric heaters
All night the daylight beckons
Side by side with the sodium
Ships square on with containers
Stevedores pointing the forks
All night the warehouse stores
Post codes flicker as though lost
They travel across the silver screen
Step up to a higher bar
Praise no longer sufficient
Delay; but aim to be concise
Time taken to work it out
Work-out, works out
To step to a higher plane
With longer wider horizons
To see more than shadows
An archipelago or beach head
Of seals or penguins, only the good
Or the bad or the well placed survive
No place here for peering blindfold
Into the oncoming headlights
