Conjure

                  CONJURE

I conjure, I conjure, I conjure thee.

Not you but thee, 

and straining in my labours I saw a trace of river water in the ocean 

and called your name, or someone did, and the foam shape of your head

tilted to listen. 

But a wave crashed and sucked and crashed again
And the land shook like a drum like a storm 
I opened my mouth

But my tongue was your tongue 

And silent, silent, silent, thee. 

       CHRIST IN THE RAIN 



I was born Christ in the rain
You know, the low misty rain that eats the horizon
As male as the back of the pale, green leaf.

 

                LINES ON A LAST LOVE 

I see the water in the white stream bed.
The water running is a sound I have heard before.
Though the phone I hold is never answered,
I know upstream they bob,
caught in the snags
and battered in the falls and rapids
waiting for the release of putrefaction.
While downstream is the last sleepy ocean.
From the stream bank of safety I survey it all.

If I was brave enough to wet my legs again,
if I threw tobacco and tin into the death white foam,
would the colour of winter melt away one last time?

      I WAITED, WHILE WRITING 

I waited, while writing, not knowing you waited too, then tucked note book and all my thoughts of Glen Vine safely away, and, on the closed railway line, let my desire for you draw me gently up the steady, shaded incline. Gaining the familiar heights of your flat, I found your note there, seeing for the first time your hand-writing, spiked and sharp like the yellowed, mounted antlers of the Loughton Hare, but the sound of the inky words themselves was round, solid and dark. Hearing your feet on the stairs, wishing last minutes were not so fleet, I turned and saw you in the doorway, tight and controlled and small, the splattered, wet sunlight dripping on the floor at your feet. I stood as still as pain as you turned aside, then down the bedroom hall Your hair was pulled-back and severe, even as two fingers danced, and the purple sigh of ragged flesh turned to black and glistened