Grey skies, grey moon,
Lanterns all abandoned on the old pontoon;
Coldest rain, not quite snow,
Furloughed ghosts on shoreline roads.
Grey skies, blue moon,
Soonest mended isn’t soon;
I found you in a curlew’s tomb,
Curfew banners and a clue.
Moses basket, river child,
In the mists we walked a mile;
On surfaces bob the sombre boons,
Grey skies, a greyhound moon.
This bleak and empty screen,
Like repetitive angst, or writer’s block,
Trying to eke and will words out
As contrived as a tattooed snake in my jaw,
Polarising a use of my
Fruitless time, amoral Time,
As trying to help pull you through
From one place in our denuded lineage
And the space between rhymes
To another untested angle,
But there’s your better lover
Returning home from work
While I wait through centuries here,
Willing improvements in words
To emerge like moonlight
On a dim and distant
Drain-scarred stagnant moor.
You dropped your black dress,
Yes, I watched the seismograph
In my mind finding new charts,
In a pool on a kitchen floor.
