taken thru' hushed veils

where are you? "gone"

sighs the tremble in the

breeze, "gone" says the crow

in it’s dark charcoal speech

gone, and the heart’s blast was

terrible, it took mountains to

rubble, splintered the sky right

thru’ and bled out it’s river

all the sleeps i had become

lay rotten whilst tomorrow opens

itself and was fearful, so the

heart began to pile it’s ashes

and time began to discard, began

to unravel the cot where i was started,

deleting anywhere known and trusted,

this everywhere of now became natural holes

filled with attempts at nothingness, and

ravines for childhood to tumble into, losing

it’s treasure as it falls, losing everyone i

ever gathered, the prosper of love withered

where are you? soaring now with the weather

fronts? thru’ the solemn voices of rain? or the

creak of dew amongst the hedges, perhaps in

the sea’s unfurling it’s coveted coat of blues?

no echo can recite i can’t remember you in,

so the slopes of synapses go vague and numbness

talks as if i am it’s buried companion, entire

days lose their lived-in-ness, and hurt is wrongful.

to that grey resentful tide, to that pall excluding

light, to grief’s unbearable city, you are silence

do not silence me, do not collect my words

before they are spoken, i had plenty then

now the mouth has lost all wordage, all floors drop

chasms where my stride is damned and in perpetual

recognition of a mortuary circle, you commit sunshine

into dusk, into plummeting inwardness

bulbs that should enlighten spring go back

to dirges, undo the root that has always anchored

me a safe heartbeat, a grey path endures to a grey

abysmal place where cranial fallout continues

enough of downpours, enough to ensure the desert drowned,

the spire seeped and the soul moaned, here is being

borrowed by something else, being gnawed at, and falling

always, thru’ damaged constellations, tear ducts are oceans

then all else was simpler,

pain has become a labyrinth a purgatory

puzzle, an-entire-life limb-liked as if

my everywhere had been killed

in reverence

the heron’s

stance is

thwarted by

silence being

stiller

and geese

are in quiet

arrows no

glance would

note

shrill

shrieked

gulls

are mute

upon the sea’s pause

no chaffinch

squabble or

robin flinch,

boughs are in

solemn grace and creak not

no breeze will

make leaf-

shimmer or

stir aphid from

sleepy stem

that raucous

stream subdues

its silver choking,

no hare will chase

on tear soaked soil

traffic salutes but no

engine will occur to

stir its wasps, no train

will pass the soot

crept viaduct

drink turns sour

in every bar, no

music can bare

its own noise,

sadness illustrates-

everywhere

flowers delay their

colourful collars and

bees refrain from pollen

danced parlours, no

spider bothers with a web

all eyes are fit

for dew

but no other

glances,

will tomorrow

differ?

or well copied

to repeat,

will weather be

the sombre same

where no sunbeam

wishes to fall?

the silencing

the day

has passed

its gloom

well inked

dusk fingers

those arches

silenced

having been

walked thru’

no echo is

returning

no page can

be brought back

once glanced at

so lifetimes are curled

beyond their quiet lids

that muffled rain upon

so many a grief will be

a permanent shouting sea

enthralled by

stricken tearing

sadness i

cannot stand

these torn atoms -

of blown

apart

oceans

mountains

into unforgettable

splinters

i am where

sieges of silence

begin

it refuses

voice, and

floors are

fallen footsteps

a drowned past

aching

until my every

spring achieves

true wither

no daffodil dwells

nor mammal leap,

no upright song

as if the air about

is crying

there is condolence

slick as politeness

and i

i am ill repaired

as if teardrops

boil my bones

no horizon will

be strode towards

or gained

no sleep to rise

well being from,

no ease of hurt

calendars are

corrupt and seem

to widen days

i’ll not be a part

of those usual hours

of peopled alcoves

here is that

everlasting minute

of loss

of something ripped

from comfort,

a howl that is muted

forever

together

star-cold-grieves,

the horizon has

never been further

waves of, come to

haunt, to layer me

deeper lost

like the loss of someone

once-was being loved, 

gone

like the inner of a

mountain being

ripped out

like the sky is only

unbreathable tearfuls,

where the mind is

only spires of black

where childhood-symmetry

cracks

that moon startled hill

where moonbeams throe,

isn’t that you in stillness?

you in your father’s

embrace? in pale

glows outside of dusk

i know where you are

not stifled in your lungs

or betrothed to cancer

no docile nurse to nod

at your death, no impatient

hearse to complain

you are where songbirds

hasten to your smile, where

shade is unrecognisable people

i know the quiet i’ve become

is because of loss and the vast

canyons it brings -

it winds the soul

deeper than

i have ever been

weeps me like

a continuous

river

a grief unending

a burial of one's

self whilst walking

taken

yesterday

happened

as meant

quite

naturally

quite beautifully sung

that dash of

onwards towards

finishing horizons

curlews

obey dusk’s

pigmented palaces

soon

constellations -

about their crowns

wonderfully noiselessness

across idyllic fade-able

horizons

but today

occurred cruelly

occurred stab wounded,

unkind, intentional

occurred

with the riddance of

skies, black poulticed heavy with insistence

a strangle in all

throats? no the world

must thrive on

audiences of

criticism in birdsong

weathers -

going their normal

their ordinary bones,

yet tragedy passes

no prelude no consent

stood thru a lifetime, 

there, then, taken

gone like the hoarders

of spring, gone from

my conversation

a concise hearse

drags my heart’s width

thru deserts of scratches

it gives wither

a permanent

under

a countryside’s

scathe beneath

saying ordinary hellos

there’s torn, much

to be torn about, the

hills i grew my childhood about, rips

the past re-troubles but

cannot re-glow but museums

itself stygian

now down awful lanes

awful wreathes bent-grief-

shaped, i stride like a stray

the heart is

impassible, implausible

of ever being touched again

i roam thru everywhere’s

dead corridor where love

is unavailable and the loneliness

sincere

aftermath

an exile from time’s

pacing,

a path now fallen

lifetimes

the shoulders

of terraces

slouched before

dismantling downwards

this

cannot be

happening

why aren’t people

tethered to this appalling

grief? it laps everywhere

broken-waved-throttling

crowds are but dissimilar shoals

desiring their own smoulder,

in them i am simply alone

precipices going over

buildings stand

immutable,

insincere,

inanimate

heart inarticulate,

worn weathers strobe

places known

disowned

catastrophe

the worst of

waking, the

gone-ness of never returning

of sharing

what could have

been spoken,

winter has me by its blood

discordant

despondent,

a shell

ease me

by cutting

nerve from nerve

from mind

medicated

muffles silence,

that slow

draping drizzle

inward

these mountains

are knives

painful attrition

replete with

grey

continuing

greyness

the many minutes

plied with are not

noticed, amass into

days strewn empty

forgotten

all of them as

they are no longer

breathed in

spring now is

a hearse of

abandoned buds

a rehearsal for dying

words

unnecessary,

pilgrimage

into shadow

inconsiderate

sunshine, ruined

laughter from

unknown people

resume

the nation’s

ignored

heartbeat

i?

i am stood or

sat as if everywhere

is vanished or

vanquished

opaque

are the voices

that cannot

get thru’

minutes

collect me

try leaving,

i am -

rain counting

each cried drop,

it worsens when

i think you in -

the archives

silver memory’d

buried with all

the other past's imperfect pages

ease me by

silencing the world’s

interference, a refugee

in a smile

splinters seem to

be everything and

sadness pours

its own tireless commentary

all quite deafening