Broken

woodblock trees stamp black cross citrus sky,

guard the crest, stand firm against marauders,

seasons march on forwards laying waste the years,

talcum dusted lunar lands, weathered feldspar fields,

hoar-crust roads glint old-foolsgold, xanthene tears.

 

driving to the station, lemon dawnlight breaking,

I’m unaware of just how far your destination’s

taking you. our snowy owl sits knowing, watching

from his sign, it must have been an omen,

should I have turned the music low and spoken?

 

we talked last night, it’s not been long, you said,

twelve weeks four days six hours ten minutes

and still counting, seven million bloody beats

of waiting, longing, missing twinning rhythm,

no wonder I feel weary, beaten, broken.

Opportunist

today the woods view’d

spring, new green puncturing old

leafmould glimps’d first sun.

Stalwart

Merging out from leafy tunnel-dark

to low-slung sun and monster shadowlands

in silhouette a stalwart bullock stands.

His brazen bulk on pale-grey road as stark

and black as jet on silver sands. He blocks

me, obstinate. I watch his male display;

a gauntlet thrown, a challenge to a fray,

he snorts his sweet hot silage fog, and mocks.

Desire to stroke his tousled forelock aches

in me. I reach. I touch. Meet mirror eyes

and see myself so small in giant skies.

Those waxy curls, a texture that awakes

a memory. My fingers. Your black hair.

So long ago, yet still, I linger there.

 

Golden

Renouncing tradition I took to the woods,

my trusty companions weft white-wizard

breath in their wake. Umbells of seedheads

donned snow-hats, heads nodding. The sunshards

turned treetrunks bronze-molten and roseate, their

glory-crowns straggling and trailing down low.

I followed the arrows that broke through the

snowcrust, they lead me to furrows all blow

rippled, whittled like wet weathered sand, lone

trudged over leaf dropped montelimar nougat,

an old slingshot treewreck held low-slung sun

missile, poised, firebrand aimed wide to the far

away heavenbound candyfloss wisps,

turned everything golden, the true alchemist.