Through the eye
 
In the mist of observation
great figures rise
and fall with
the virtues
of their station.
 
tracing great veins with pens
and paint, this blue blooded ink
clots the pages
of history.
 
In these fading papers
the apparition of utility
a masquerade of virility
 
In these bindings
leaves silencing
corseted breaths
whose gossamer
songs dissipate.
 
ashes turn words into earth
worms thieve ink to make silk.
Embroider persists
 
On tapestries,
tales glisten like
lake light shimmers
on the surface of society
 
Bees spool silk in their hives
to outfit a queen
in translucence
 
Ants through the eye
of a needle,
workers filing in lines
they weave to survive
 
for once the heroes die,
and ink sets dry
the wheel stays spinning
 
cloth. swaddles and shrouds
From birth to earth
our fibres are bound
in fabric.

​Still
 
Temple of white noise, a disturbance of gravel,
a sea-front at midnight scratching its back,
as on a nearby beach the in-between channel
is dragged out to the surf, and in its lack
 
leaves a quarry of fossils and seaweed--
it carves out hollows, holy sites and caves,
tugs the bay-water quietly along on a lead
solving the land with endless shapes of waves.
 
It’s in the detail, the rustle of black and white
spilling from the broken TV in chunks and patterns
mixing into the moon’s unravelled lamplight
on the rustling sand which the new rain flattens,
 
the rain that never stops, hammering in cold strands,
on my face, and in my cupped hands.

Faust at the Job Centre

Unthinking, not checking, being painfully human
He skimmed the bulletpoints, shrugged- and signed.
The next few years were absolutely fantastic:
Parties, drugs and rock and roll
Sex from every page of the Karma Sutra
American President, then on to better things
A glittering career scattered with baubles
and broken hearts.
It was only after five or so years
That things began to get suspicious:
First it was the smell of sulphur everywhere
(in the toaster, the car, in then the shower)
And then it was the lumps.
Towards the end
He couldn't even get his hat on properly
And his shoes just wouldn’t fit.
Tinted skin: doctor diagnosed an all-over rash.
An unexplainable compulsion to gravitate towards farmyard tools.
It was only when he rifled through the admin drawer
And pored over the old, crumpled application
That he found it, hidden deep in the small print.
 The devil was in the detail.