waikumete in tempera
seedheads brush against mossy headstones,
it puts her in mind of a painting. someone
has mowed rows between graves,
expecting descendants to pilgrimage.
nothing is ever all the way lost.
Nothing More Than Digital Scores
It’s the striking of a match,
sliding a thumb dipped in sulphur
against a screen of phosphorus.
It’s the snapping of a lighter
when I click to open, and a silhouette
with every freckle and pockmarked pore
softly shines and strokes and spotlights
the bags under my eyes,
Shed Your Skin
Hello cemetery road, you with your
Long gravel tail that stretches endlessly
Towards some vague expression of peace,
There amongst the tallest trees.
You are rotting
Ballad of the Rebel Angels
Shadowed figures crawl o’er the hills —
From what crevasse they came
No creature knows but may distil;
Eternal furnaced flame.
Inside the Hollow Tree
Welcome to the beaver den!
here I squirrel away
things that might be useful.
Trust me, I need
my drawer of scarves I never wear.
Under the Weather
It is mid-June and
you haven’t seen daylight for quite some time,
haven’t left your bed or felt a faucet’s steady drip on your back, can’t
recall the last time you smiled where it wasn’t on cue
wasn’t it April? was that
the last time the sky was blue before the thunderclap that sent you home
Two children daring each other to touch an electric fence
In winter your muscles fasten together in an icy paralysis. You walk barefoot on the railway – your feet warmed by the rumble of trains. You can feel their vibrato as they approach, shaking the dewdrops on the frost-bound earth.
You hold fast to the sleepers, enamoured by the headlights and the scream of the whistle.
aquarium dreams
tonight I pledge to have aquarium dreams
there will be octopi and axolotl and anemone and eels
they can nibble on blood worms and prawns and peas
taste the ends of my fingers and pieces of cheese