24

no tears I have
cried and pissed enough
a glint by the shed.
Keyshine? Immobile
I lie a liner in
drydock

25

a cloud dances
over a roof patch
I need to nail down
before the half brick
slips
once I get my back upright

26

sluggish stick
of fig through hole
a leech against the thigh
lint coated no doubt
a slice is what we need
pumpernickel, that's the ticket

27

laundry ammonium tang
cloth nappies
soak in a bleaching bucket
dry ones hang from a rack
suspended from the ceiling
like a sailor’s cot

28

before bed ablutions
spit on a tissue brings back
how gran would take off
her slippers and whiskey
the corgi would lick her feet
good for her corns

29

bedtime if
I could only get up
then morning again
with no choice in the matter
my green mattress grows damp, still
his shed should buffer the wind

30

earth still here not
open ground staggering down dark
like the night before last
i'll fix me a face
while i wait for her
to find me

31

potted meat now there's
a treat but never lettuce
green water in a leaf
if she could find her way
to a hand-up and tea in a cracked
mug would be a fine thing

32

they are calling for the dog
slipped his leash again
a dog's tongue is a cold
business is she
out or in? out most likely
at the shops

33

give tongue to gull,
tongue to keys unfound,
to cloud; speak
of the dead as if they
were here, how could you
speak otherwise?

34

a cracker in my pocket
i'm sure of it
a cracker and a sliver of cheese
wrapped in tissue
perhaps even a fig
at the bottom of the pocket

35

bright today even
with eyes closed even
when you play the game
of taking away
the back lawn cool on the back
the yap of a neighbour's puppy

36

Sun. I lie
on the back lawn
let the thousand pores of my skin
flower edelweiss novas
I’ll hazard all this
perilous noon

37

how she manages
those shops i'll never know
the damp cabbage and muddy
brussell sprouts not to mention
wrapped mince in brown paper
i shudder to think of it

38

when she comes back
and if she does then there's sure to be
a kindness
and a well then
with your eyes down cast and a
no more again of this business

39

my finger worries
a hole in my right
trouser pocket
upright I
scan the dark lawn
for a glint of keys

40

where once you saw a page
now you see
a white field
blurred by scribble
and a black boulder
fly

41

a fly rests on the leaves
of the book of mind
it does not close
words fade before the fly
fly fills eye
fly fills room and sky

42

truth over stories
the world as it is
not as we wish it to be.
The world. This world.
For this is the only world
there is or shall ever be

43

These notes are nothing
trivialities, tokens
snatched
from the night
seconds before
sleep

44

psychiatry's the new rock and roll
come to mine
and bring your DSM
I know you got me pegged as borderline
but I'm plagued by
wood sprites

45

45: you want to step out of the song
leave the wood if you dare
but she’s still in the water
her back to you
a page
palimpsests faits chair

46

hunter by slow waters
what you cannot remember
with only your words to fill
the limit of her dance
the spaces in your dreams
and no end ever to a never

47

fall of brook
over stone: her name
from this song
is still your name
for her in your
tongue

48

remembrance of her washing
pump water from the courtyard
carried to the basin in a steel pitcher
dawn amber light
shock of mushroom
areola as she turns her back

49

the swinging door of breath
walking in walking out
midnight
midday
a missed space
or step

50

all those promises of home
of finding nymphs in the wood
by rivers springs wells who could
tell their truths under the mesh of leaves
at the listening place, who
offer the promise of words to fill nothing

51

at the speaking place
place where the lips speak
moving against the black
the red against the black
a pouring out of speech in speaking
thought in thinking

52

Deneb drowned by a half-moon light
I rake black mowed grass
by the laundry
waiting for sleep
my sole voice in the night singing
'you and me,' 'you and me,' 'you and me.'

53

tired of dice and cards, speculations
hesitations, pauses
shuttling between this and that
lying in the dark for what
must be days or at any rate
the space between days

54

waiting for a call
or a voice
even my voice if I could
recognise it as such
infinity against infinity
means nothing in my book

55

I loved those
lucky number sweets
my first mother
gave to me as a child
he always wanted the 77
I always wanted the 88

56

Gorji? No, not him, the other one
what was his name?
It's as if it had never been
can you believe it?
As if it had never been
today that is, that was

57

now it’s night
the rain drops, falls
down, not that night
minds day or day
minds night, not that
mind minds at all

58

we are the spaces in between
the holes within the hoops
the midnights make the days
able to pass—you want to play the silence
but you cannot play the silence
with notes or loops

59

my choosing to speak
even if I can't mean what I say this time
my choosing to speak
lets midnight pass
here, now,
the time and shadow of our hands

60

here I have to make do without stories
I'm left with traces, impressions
what's all been thrown together
tohu-bohu
still my voice when I call you
brings your face to me

61

we're just the copies of the copies
but still we love to see the mist rise in the valley
we too are just suspended
and we'll wait as long as it takes to wait
as long as it takes for the wait to take place
as long as it takes for I do

62

all our disastrous stars
charting destinies
destinations, all
our tomorrows one step
outside what we
own or know

63

Sometimes I sit in the laundry
in the late Sunday afternoon light
children tinkle, coins spangle
through trees over the neighbour’s fence
I take-off; I’m unbound
like a Montgolfier balloon

64

I keep a jumble in my head
of all the spaces between the named
of all the numbered items
of all the stars and grains
of all the graceful pauses
the waxes and the wanes

65

Rien à faire. So unfair
and how to make that nothing
(and how). You wait for midnight
it comes and goes: the space between days
You wait again with nothing
to be gained from waiting

66

Rattle of rain, whistle of wind through cracks
my soundtrack, our pertinent facts
the sound of the morning garden has gone
the sound of the morning garden will come back.
Tell me, tell me, tell me do
what kind of nothing is that?

67

I’ll throw to you
un coup de dés
this truth you throw
your name for me
you'll hear in spaces between tracks
a rustle of labels blowing back

68

The number one comes after the nothing.
What if the music covered nothing?
You measure the lines, count the beats,
loop the breaks, break the loops
over the nothing, in order for the notes
to be played, the flows to escape

69

I’m restless, I’m uneasy
I'm not sure about what
the mirror says that being's in the eye
me, I’m not so sure
but music adds something
to a sparrow crossed field of snow

70

A turn of the loop, turning back
I am here, I am still here, waiting
I’m on the step, stepping on the no
my foot’s at your door
there’s something outside your room
my feet at your door, turning back

71

nothing for music
music for a plain unmarked field of snow
no thing signs for nothing
think again
abominable snow
making me cold

72

realism is no excuse
for paucity of imagination
correct diction
a matter for the authorities
the transistor's red light on the dresser
Mars low in the south

73

The War is everywhere now God’s in his ghetto
so embrace the coupled logic of conjunction and catalogue
revert to type but with difference
remove all local referents
treat all intelligences as artificial
each word’s a plum, each bite’s a syllable

74

Mediocrity is your prerogative

bland brand bands compulsory

the same recycled tongues and identities

mandatory tats and body piercing

just to cross the rope (not much hope)

here in twilight mediacities

75

Tell me again

tell me again

what I like and what I'm like and how

tell me again

what I'm never to do with you

you always do

76

I tell you what I'm never to do with you
I'm so sorry my eyes are porcelain blue
you say our words are a child's lost kite
or a discarded newspaper which blows
around a sunday afternoon train station
unwanted spectators to a couple's kiss

77

You never listened to a single word
you never do
you're too busy telling me
how like the mountain
I can be appreciated from many views
all of them incidentally yours

78

mountainous

battleship grey breakers

you ride them waiting

for them to push you down

don't raise your arms above your head

don't open your mouth so wide

79

There was too much conditioner in the morning air's hair
so the morning air looked like Chi Chi
tired in the laundry waiting for the lawn to dry
she's in the bedroom reading a research bibliography
about all those tics and signs
all those diagnostic tests for the creeps and the freaks and you

79

Our homelands are assembled
in the lens of your cameras
our homelands are likely stories
what ya fink den?
what's it going to be then?
marriage like being in a band is bloody murder

80

We don't do natural: we do theatre

The bride punched black by the bachelors

the bachelors punched out by each other

The bride looking like she packs the biggest punch

Now just act normal before the camera

Talk about breaks music; I'll give you breaks

81

Rain at the window

candles

you count so as to reassure yourself

that you are moving on

You count down: starting and stopping

dreaming of loops

82

Counting down the days

just for the sake of it

to stop you forgetting

in your mother's room

the papers coming and going

midnight in the middle of a bad week

83

The rain lashed against the window like a Mancunian charwoman
throwing her dregs out on the flags
the red light of the transistor radio floated
like a buoy in the room's dark ocean
The concert programme played a string concerto
that tightened all the nerves down my back