ICARUS UNBOUND

fetched in a screech
of downhill sky
Icarus, pitching
met the wind

coming at him
through unwaxed straps
learned
the wrong way up, to fly

Icarus: untied

out of upswept
plaster I built him
leaping with unpared wires
his ragged armature

cradled a hollowness
at core, yet undeterred
the sculpture warred with air

Icarus: flawed

the plaster figure
and the real man
drove themselves through me
all one rain-long Spring
until a creature clumsily conformed
spilt upside down

Icarus: unwarned
           
then came curious weeks
I left him standing
precarious
on the shed roof - every wind
promised a landing

yet, great white bat
he remained
shaking out scarred wings
tremulously restrained
bits fell off
perhaps to reconnoitre

Icarus: the loiterer

a late April storm
flashy and rowdy
took him
lightning-struck
who had yearned for light

now broken-backed
undone
his blind face
terrible with the knowledge
of the ground
its last embrace

Icarus: unbound

THIS EXTINCTION BUSINESS

in 1988 they said - there's a hole in the sky!
we're all going to die!
but by then we were hardened to
warnings: we'd grown a carapace.
for years we'd been going to die
at any moment: blown sky-high.  so what?

and now the planet's broken?
sure.  we've done our worst,
we deserve to reap the whirlwind.
but it's those others i hear:
their hooves thudding into extinction.
furred and scaled and feathered, winged and finned:
accusing us: we're as sentient as you!
this is our world, too!

but if i say - we're taking the others with us!
we deserve to die but they don't!
you ask - which others?  and look at me
as if this extinction business
has tipped me over the edge.

no; i am as sane as cold water.
when we have killed ourselves and all the others,
the hot poisoned wind will bear away
the guilt we cannot bear to own,
and our name will be a hissing on that wind.

FOXED AND FOLDED

i bought it in 1968 - it cost five shillings -

a paperback book of love poetry.  
the cover (psychedelic orange, 
pink and purple) still glows hopefully,

like an old dear in a gaudy cardigan.

the years have foxed the pages

deep brown.  corners are folded over,

so brittle they almost part.  i marked

the poems which spoke to me when i was twenty.  

not any more.  i read them now 
with a cold, discerning eye:

impatient with mismatched lines, loose

undisciplined sentiments.  
how harsh i've become!

i open the book at random, read:

'Here is an answer to play with:

the fire is dead.'

yes - too apt for comfort.  the years

which burned these pages brown

have all but burned me dry.  like this book,

my corners are turned over 

marking something which no longer matters.

LOSING TRACK

i used to be young and then
somehow i lost the knack.

you don't think of it as a skill:
cycling aloft on the wire,
but once belief goes - that's it:

you've veered off track
into a siding.  you recall
the switching point, the shudder
as your life became detached.

windows turn inward: reflect
your back-to-front face
which has forgotten how, lost when.

the dreams begin: leaving luggage
on a train. searching
through unknown cities. riding a bus
unable to name a destination.

i used to be young.
i didn't think of it as a skill.
you ask if i'd go back?

yes, but i don't remember these streets;
and anyway i've lost the knack.

SOU'WESTER

branches slap branches, flap

their few leaves, make wild

commotion and complaint: the air

is raving and motes of birds,

snatched in sky currents, fly

impossibly backwards.

the apple tree wags by the garden door,

smacks down a yellowed fruit on the flags

like a card player with a winning hand.

rooks, rain-beaded in the creaking willows,

wrap their hooks tight: jig to the beat of the storm.

HAIKU PEBBLES

a day of half-measures;
touching and just missing:
slightly off-centre


waking to a world
better than its dreams,
the snail delights in the rain


buzzard skywards
spiralling: leaves behind no marks
that i can discern


blackbird in the dusk sings
dusk in the blackbird:
theme and variations


each year the trees
blossom more beautifully
but my own flowers fade


rummaging in the bag
for a haiku, i found instead
empty space


puss cat intently
sniffing the rush matting:
remembrance of mice past


if it's true that
we reincarnate, then we are
our own ancestors


change the world
one doubt at a time: ask the
impossible question


this morning there was no world
beyond the dense white fog
which wrapped the field


i load up my plate
with the future.  the notice says:
all you can eat!

HARE’S BREADTH

where shall we put this
gift, which fate has wrapped
in new leaves
and sealed
with the dark startle
of the hare’s gaze?  where 

shall we fit it?  where keep
it safe?  between
great stones fitted knife-blade close,
under some restless
mountain, or in a mirror 
where no one has yet looked?  

do not try to fit it anywhere:
there is nowhere it belongs.
we must fit ourselves, instead,
into whatever space it leaves unfilled 

(though there is nowhere it has left unfilled)