Tag: dereliction

Waking up, falling down

In
the tin-can morning
jagged-sunned
safe, but for a raw edge
behind the death-knell curtains
I put on my floor trousers
laying like a dog
dust the colour of the moon 
sieves down
I step raggedly through
motes follow, worshipping 


There’s a myth 
that strength and vulnerability 
aren’t mutually exclusive 


From here you can almost see
the willow by the bridge


But (too bright) today
I will just hallow the memory


The shadow of the bed’s
barred iron brow
stretches narrowly and wide 
to keep me


As if such creatures had enclosing wings


Crumpling by the escarpment
to the floor
I do not dispute

Blind morning sun

January is the longest month
After the cacophony
Of the morning’s war
We lost the world in chipped cups
Bird demands and traffic ricochets
Rope burn and gravel skies
Dead teabags high as Babylon 
Cigarette ends crushed into the floor
Stations on the map
Of harsh, devoured moments
Crooked and splayed and almost 
                                            immediately forgotten
There is no running water
To keep the dead at bay
The crisscross handle bites at your wrist
The throes of something
Desperately still alive
As if you inadvertently held
In a stigmate hand
Knocking at the walls 
Lazarus emerging
The day suddenly brazen 
Climbing hand on hand
To the second floor
A smudge on your chest
From wounded lath dislodged 
When you scraped against the parapet
The surface lunar dry
But beneath, a rich wet earth
That smelt of hungry winter
Tugging at your coat and hair
The building has no face
We are in the socket of its eye
The pages of Salverte’s
Philosophy of Magic
That you translated
In blemishes of ink
Blown on a rising wind
Through the sunrise swelling blindness
For the unfathomed dead to read