There is no time left in the summer,
no warmth in the stone,
no sound from the passing waters
that flow upon memory’s well-worn stage,
or in Eden’s squalid grove.
Only the voices we gave one another,
rising through unrecognised streets
before setting into silent decline,
or scattering,
wind-like,
across foreign lands.
We carry our implied business,
beneath a murderer’s star,
passing between salt-filled squares
set with glassy-eyed sharks,
feeding the wind
through an overpriced killing machine.
The clouds are swiftly skinned,
gutting their angry bloat.
Together we smear the red asphalt,
with aged epoxy and lead,
rinsing our hands upon the paving stones
to wash away our dirty trade.
Soon small grains of blood fill the air,
causing strange creatures to appear,
albino shrimp and tender stem worms,
which slip through the empty streets,
avoiding the iron boxes we placed about
to trap the long day’s end.
Suspended by a nocturnal bird’s wing,
unauthorised vending machines
rotate silently over empty apartments,
watching, with uncomprehending eyes
a motorised embrace
frozen
between declined transactions.
Two lovers
lie in serene embrace
beside dead reptiles strung on a line,
with black skin adhered to weathered bone
coated in sand that glistens
star-like
against the night sky.
It is fifteen-past four,
The car-park brings back memories
two mouths meeting
beneath a street-lamp,
garlanded by electric moth-flight.
The silent valley cannot stay that way for long,
the liquidation should be worth your time,
better men tend to get hunted with age
each person party to the happy event.
Crossing many distant hills,
I started towards the door,
treading carefully to avoid the waves
that had begun to break
upon the kitchen furniture.
Nothing left behind,
except for a dog,
wandering the fields at dusk.
Even the nightingales
that gave you no rest,
have fled across the open sea.
Freehold
Writing to aggrieved parties without seeking retribution,
Your offer has been left out cold
Such abandonment, as previously indicated,
implies rejection.
Your sighs do not pay rent.
You imagine in that moment
that all gravity could be removed,
to raise free-floating forms and phytoplasmas,
a delight to the disjointed limbs
that lie discarded upon the sodden woodpile.
The house has been worried of late, the clock wears a frown.
We did not notice the arrival of the silent service men
Please keep your hands off my coat.