Anger in Ladies &c . . .makes a beauteous face deformed and contemptible. . . and separates Roses and Lilies, by quite removing one or the other out of the Ladies cheeks . ....

      Saxifrage Her laconic neighbour uproots a mound of wildflowers. He buries bulbs within a copestone circle, gritting the soil so they will not rot in wet. He empties his glass...

    Death-Winter February 1963 It is the year the poet died and we are soon to leave the town. Against the stage-set of raucous rooks whose interminable chatter gives them information...

      Poem as Parasite A dark image, close as if the reader’s own, lets the poem bite. It feeds in the night begins to swell until it sees a future for itself, growing through a...

      Communion the body breaks: feed it to itself at least once in seven days. wine is optional; water slakes the skin’s dull cry, pours clear cool across eyelids & down throats....

      Afternoon on the A658 The sun’s not to be seen but it’s diffusing everywhere, the whole sky lamp lit, the storm clouds glowing grey like rainbows waiting to happen. Stravinsky’s...

      After the Work is Done Wood-warm tools muddied, scraped and set aside, a pleasant ache lingers in my joints. I lounge on my shed’s tilted porch, waiting for the first flickers...