An Evening at the Gallery

I

A rainbow must be poured,
the air framed and hammered –
a million wrinkled angel hands
hold

II

I take the glass and glowing ice,
put it in the racist’s mouth and say –
bite

III

Of complex fire
little can be said – at first.
Then, it toasts the mind

IV

Imperial marble glitches
(robed in light, disperses)

V

Imagine the whole world in pastel
skyscrapers. Then,
through the dark, a mist
and floodlit grass

VI

A devil dances on the church.
Children laugh and reach
but only feel the stone –
gaps where faces should be

VII

In the dry ice
and perfect acoustic space
a sofa waits

VIII

Bodies on a walkway
in black coats – all watching
an ad for trainers

IX

A thirties hotel
immaculate corridors, red carpets –
in each room, a clump of
mushrooms
sprouts from a freshly made bed

X

Mecha-godzilla was only a child…
He didn’t know the ripples were chaos!!!

XI

The grass in a late nineteenth century
park square, begins to glow
at the tip
and shiver

XII

Words carved on a black wall say –
we are sediments.
We sink to the bottom
– anyway,
let’s go eat soup

V.121

In the city, the Christians
grew accustomed. The empire war,
which had been waging for long years
had its opponents. Casualties –

always fighting, giving leaflets –
learning unaccountable truths –
no concept is safe from the earth.
Boys carry little flags, and gurn,

dragging the flags on the damp stone.
Empire and humanity, age
and mix, as womens’ hair is caught
on long lines of dancing metal

tearing it from their heads. This world
– this economy – transfixes
the human, tears it. Dresses it up
in uniform, in dead structure

We soon turn back, to watch its path
when only we remain. Staring
as images pile up on streets
that are dragged through the shifting dust

The city filled with glowing points
like a lost tangle of string-lights.
We try and unweave it, but soon
crackle and break, changing something

Wetherby Road

The wood gate is crisp
driftwood’s dry mirror –
and the church behind
is the rock upon
which the waves crash hard.

This hubbub decries –
with the tree’s creaking –
those who seek a peace.
Really there is no
well chiselled message;

In the graveyard hear
soft undefined hums
of voice and organ
mixing in hollows –
hear wind whistle through.

Hear your insecure
thoughts tapping upon
the stained glass dust – hear
choral doom and then
lays of the bright voice;

continuity
in time’s long empire
has brought the air here
and the soft water
and me