father poem

distance is further, unreachable stretches,

of ink stained shores there is slow in stride

a soot-silhouetted figure wades thru imaginary

summers, tongues of last year’s september

all but faded in wreathes and evening dirges,

waist high is grief it leans like granite

that fattened moon flared whilst swollen

gives gaze and makes silver surroundings

enough to make ghostly and shadows living,

please if you will glance back at the son, his

grief-see-thru-as-a-pane, the soul’s swept

weathers delves arrival deeply, where -

the sunlit honeycomb weeps a continuous bleed

a silvery light distant follows what i thought

was him passed the slanted barn upheaved

and spoken to by the wind, no tree is root

enough to have him stay, up over as if floating

to the brow of the hill that looks like a hand,

moon-hid-beyond its scarves of cloud, stood there-

like

a solemn gesture

like a goodbye

like a breath that

decides quiet,

then gone

adder

my name

adder, mardy

king of the

bramble slums

a shyness a

slither of, a

pipe with a

deadly tooth

my trophies

of mice, of birds

having had their pretty

skulls sung out

my corpse land

my dismal hospice,

i am where the

marram crosses

oh daft edged folk

go by unnoticed,

where i coil as

leftover rope

there in the clutter

of lids and plastic

they seem as forever,

cans sharp and hiding

i mimic death as

a stick, as some

kind of bearable

twig

my kingdom of

hideouts, my houses

of what has been

swallowed

i leave their bones

outside like piles

of fences, like signs

or pleas

picnic burials,

often a planet is

thrown its ball

disturbs indulgence -

and in dirges i

hid with best stillness,

my name if called

upon is poison

scale and patience,

feathers caught on

thorns, under here

in drab, drab palaces -

more of me are born,

what lengthens day-

light is habitual as the

dog chasing nowhere

certain as the gull

that sinks and rises

thinks it owns the sky

and all the fallen crumbs below

those stood

are rotted

upwards, speech-

wise slurs as wind

they funeral well,

i sup upon the birth

of rabbits, red and

newly written

my name i forget

myself, and the nearing

autopsies of autumn infusing

browns to fall

those skeletal gorses

hands-rubbed-ruins,

below is whereabouts

and leaking tins

my netherworld

my tearful, my nest

that has no edges,

as i sleep -

i do become nameless