golden hour

I’ve come through nettles
to a place where
you are charming.

It is not only the pen
that must write well
it is also the paper
that must take it.

I hold my hands up
and the way you take them
is not what I expected.

You and I are never
of the same mind.

Nevertheless I’ve found that even after hours covered by thick blankets of cloud, there is a reprise just before the day ends and if I manage to look I see the city bathed in a beautiful oblique light just before darkness descends. One last hope before the dark.

In this light I will
accept you with a second grace.
Everything is beautiful
in this last light.

permanent scar

It was clear
It was bright
It was carefully defined,
observed from a stillness never since known.

I was dying
Or might have been.
The blood running out
I remember no pain.



Years later he reported
I’d run through a stained glass window
--A breathtaking notion.
But it was a sliding door,
and it wasn’t stained until I got there.


The hard bone of my head
broke the glass
The soft under my
chin took the spike
and I dangled
crystal clear
Beautiful stretcher
bearer. Mother’s
bloody warm fingers
and moving mouth
willing me to stay.

Thirty-eight years later
The pictures are clear.