Defragmentation

To be touched once
and never more
the same hands
trick the light

people fall apart
bit by bit
they defragment
and disappear

Stained Glass

A ruined church now stands
where once a young choir sang,
sheltering walls sink into the earth
tumble down the rock face.

Touch my ageing hand she might
say were she to come home,
but the grey cloud is winter
her heart turned to stone.

Sonnet X

How long can you avert the eyes?
For ever like blind man or fool?
It is possible to look not see
the arc of light over distant land
brilliance and irony of celebration.
It was rubble at the beginning
and so shall be at the end,
how do people live like that?

Some rough beast howls in the desert
creeps down in the fatal night
to take such risk the fear
of the shadow to quench thirst
to try to stay alive one more day
but oh listen to the tanks roll in.

Snail

these tender horns
shrink from the touch
wait for the crunch

that will obliterate
the ugly night's pain
this bombed-out end

Sonnet IX

and then you have to make
small house a room
turn it up
let the
twist of lemon ice
outside
soundless
so it seems
a ripple
in the new year
moving towards
the light of day
don't wait
for me

Without History

Under the unnamed trees
always alone
dead leaves underfoot
hardly ever
through the grass hardly
crushing out the life
gold sunlight red and brown