Letter #12

Her name was Cloudier but now

known to you as Storm

 

never in the same place twice but

nevertheless she strikes and

 

illuminates a moment enough

to mistake her lex talionis for

 

cool vengeance of she who docks years and

subtracts pleasures judiciously saying

 

‘no matter how well spent

it’s spent with no account now’

 

Could the mind be cloudier though

and that path ahead a faultline?

 

So walk backwards uphill

Get nowhere on life’s treadmill

 

But restore the knee of wisdom

the sanity of tiny relics and sadness

 

of riots past and pagan screams

and all that disappeared under foot

 

                                                                        8 January 2024

Letter #10

The pertinent thing you see

is the Pantheon

 

which channels light

not water

 

and replenishes each day

The impertinent thing you don’t see

 

is unknown to theology

That’s the thing to look for

 

as you won’t trip over it

nor will it hit you

 

Follow the scent of dusk

As it darkens

 

and no owl takes flight

you’ll be hollowed out

 

or swallowed up

into an apter metaphor

 

                                                                        7 December 2023

Letter #8

Octavian messed with us

as August inherited July’s sun

 

and I appointed someone

to do my skiing for me

 

Then thunder struck

and it occurred to me

 

that being so little

of unknown pronoun

 

being lost to me eternally

returned to me unexpectedly

 

namelessly and so ethereally

compared to he who was imperially

 

Octavian

and was blond they say

                                                                        20 November 2023

Letter #6

                                     ‘Do I wake …?’

Keats

 

Her joke’s on the onlookers

who make a spectacle only of themselves

as they crowd her room each day

 

By night she forgets to exist

The galleries and all their work

obligingly go dark for us

 

Impish experiments thrive instead

like the unexpected gift

of a cake stall in the middle of hell

 

Such a beautiful humour is so inhuman

it’s a cloud that hovers modestly about her

rendering her unreachable

 

                                                                        27 July 2023

Letter #4

 

‘Prithee say on.’ Hamlet, II, ii

 

Let the knife do its work

and cut the loaf

 

as we live invested in a body

of preposterous ideas

 

Abandon hopes plans ships

and yourself

 

The yard’s a mess of fallen twigs

Sodden turf records

 

the prints you left

but couldn’t cover

 

You heard the gate creak

and her foot disturb some gravel

 

Her fragrance and image

flowed between your fingers

 

Her crumb of sustenance

and drop of toxin

 

needn’t disappoint you

now you know

 

she prays you

say more

                                                                       11 July 2023