Sleeping Under Bridges

After the thaw

We gave dogs for the recovery

To gnaw burnt bones

With that slathered drawl

That brooks no interference

With the jut and fragmentary remains

Until all such blasphemies were gone

The numb colour

Of this too thin desecration

We are in the onramp’s hull

You and me, me and him

Earth and concrete carbon black

Cars stretch like the evening sun

Speared across the dregs of tarns

Rumble and are gone

As if a metronome

                                 slowed

                                               and faltered

In distorted syncopations 

Brayed a catastrophe laugh

The smeared window

To another world

Broken when you fell in

Dragged up again

In piecemeal resurrection 

A coin flips from thumb to hand

Rise

As if there was any other choice

Monoxide dreams like rain

Your eyes watch the curtailed dawn

For a distant star

Too late

In them the fishhook sun

Pulls you awake again 

Quite mad, Kate

Have thoughts like a dog
Pat and scold them
Until they behave
With that desperate, Pavlovian drool


There is no news today
Just stray cats and poetry
And the crisp meringue
Of clouds


If I wilt in the disdain
Of your withering heights
Perhaps you will forgive
My awful pun, bleak and mad
As it is, with thwarted love


A bird will steal your voice
If you let it


Nevertheless, a hand full of crumbs