Thursday, December 21, 2006

Winter Brambles



Bramble stems in leaf,
untidy lines of a poem
with hooked thorns
snagging clothes and hands,
older stems, purple as wet ink,
spreading through trees
and over dried leaves.

Today I’ve cut them to the ground,
till my old dry hands too dripped bloody ink.

So now from easy garden paths
trees are skeletal, architectural.

But Wild and Waiting
the brambles soon regrow,
to grasp and bind and pierce
and make their presence felt.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Pizza Express


I was waiting for my wife
in this empty restaurant
intensely reading.

The erotic book was “Written on the Body” by Jeanette Winterson,
and I’d identified with the narrator-

“Louise let me sail in you over these spirited waves.
I have the hope of a saint in a coracle”

My wife had surprised me
when she said the narrator was a woman.
I couldn’t believe it.

Looking for clues I finish the book.
There is no evidence,
either way,
the waiter smiles.