Dead Reckoning

Living near a graveyard

Sounded a good idea:

Not far to walk

If you need fresh air.

Stones don’t depress me;

It’s people that do.

There are far too many

And they look like you.

With the dead,

You know where you are:

They understand

What silence means;

Yet don’t complain

If you hold wild parties,

Or scream in the rain.

The odd ghost you meet

On those cemetery strolls

Where life appears abstract

Is strangely polite.

Even the headless ones

Raise their hats.

Spooks can be obliging

With directions

(Where am I buried?);

And endlessly patient,

Knowing (unlike us)

That time leads nowhere,

And worrying’s no use.

Their jokes aren’t as funny,

But that's no excuse.

Lullaby

Before archaeology,

A baby’s cry

Split time.

Before fire

Or conscious thought,

Language of any kind,

A cry

Before sound

Became word.

Clear yet

Untranslatable

(language is not yet born),

No echo, but

The original

Atavistic urge

That brings us rushing

To the cradle.

Fire Circle

These faces joined by fire,

Resemble each other in a way

That mocks proximity.

A brief chiaroscuro

Igniting our fates,

Caught in this ritual

Of flame and wonder.

.

Redeeming this patch

Of common ground,

Where truth holds out a burning hand

Against tomorrow.

Clueless

That dark cloud passing could be a sign

Of thoughts drifting back

To the scene of the crime.

The clock says three,

Though time’s a mystery;

And the cops as usual

Are clueless.

Fiction won’t change your life,

But it could hold the key:

Pages lead us to truths

We should have guessed.

Days like this, I stay home,

With murder in mind.

Sifting remains,

In bed with PD James.

Bloke

When football’s done, he folds away

Until next season.

 Sometimes, you see him in the garden

Not doing much:

Scraping the rust off the barbecue

Or swapping round pots;

There’s the drill that starts up some nights,

As if he’s forgotten

That life is perfect.

Apart from that, it’s just

The odd word in the street

Or chin-wag at Sainsbury’s.

Let’s face it,

If it’s not about Rovers, it lacks an edge.

There’s not much else, is there, really?

Bath Abbey

August 2011

That person tapping at his mobile phone,
The woman chatting in the pew,
Will they still be here
At evensong?

Hurrying from tomb to tomb
The young with backpacks - getting in the way
Of that old codger with his telephoto lens,
Stalking stained glass –
Are they all part of one great story?

An effigy arrests the eye:
Five hundred years of still
Devotion wait
Among the hordes
For silence and the darkened hour,

While human voices rise
Past columns
To fine traceries of stone
That bear the weight of time
For now, if not hereafter.

A candle flame reveals
The lighter's face.
Unlike the tourists milling round,
Souls sheltering from life or rain,
Our prayers remain invisible.

Life Lines

Great Ormond Street, 1987

You don’t recall, being so young,

The spectre of each cot:

Wires straggling up to screens

That told some secret story;

The hurried smiles,

Eyes grim with care,

In your first moments;

Willing science to mend

What nature had left unfinished.

Technology can’t heal

The hours

That fear for breath.

Pacing that ward,

We listened for the note

Of lives so small,

Now amplified

To fill a room:

The message of each heart

Defining a universe. 

Final Vision

A prophet on his off-day

Has few friends:

Visions tumble,

Believers run,

Even the wind deserts him.

That Ark you built

Rots in the backyard

Unnoticed,

As the earth burns.

Your miracles have come adrift;

Your prayers returned

Unopened.

Now, on the highest mountain,

You try to make amends:

Opening your arms to the

Clouds

In search of rain.