The Incident The general mood was optimistic precisely because everything had been prepared to go wrong, and when the performance was unexpectedly beset by several predictable problems, the general mood became even more optimistic. The incident...

      You Were And she could hear the highway breathing And she could see a nearby factory She's making sure she is not dreaming (Talking Heads, She Was) Out past the peeling smokestacks In a blurring frame of mind You healed me, in the name of A dab of...

      Otter in shadows You can see where he is, little seeker, by the sparkle of bubbles escaping from his fur, a surface shiver fizzing among bladderwrack. When he starts rummaging in nests on the skerry, the heron flaps off, a flag signalling end of...

      Each night each night I lie in bed, spurred and splintered, to tape your breath, kiss the guinea pig that died in my keep, hair flick, to flick you alive each night I marry a replica of god’s first limb and break his fingers one by one each night...

      Reaping the Whirlwind headlit rain-wind detonates on tarmac stings our faces    lashes our ears batters our legs like breakers from a long Atlantic swell it souses heavy coats like tissue snatches our bellowed madness we scurry for shelter fools...

      Starve O’clock The sharpness of hunger shadows the downs. Kite quarters with an opportunist’s moon-pale eye. The woman threw food – sky dog, it came to her whistle. Afraid for their barbecues, next door complain. Woman desist or be afraid. Lost on...

      All the World I come home early to the clatter of pans Loud music Kitchen smells A smile on your face The scene is so warmly lit that I’m almost taken in but Your eyes are red I say something about the pollen count and you don’t look at me as I...

      That Night   Why did the swans hiss that night? He comes from the river, he comes from the lake Why did the wind howl that night? He heaves it down, he hauls it in Why did the moon glow red that night? He seeks her out, he hunts her down Why did...

      Here Come the Crows I drew a sudden dark line under it all. Emphatically, and with the fulsome flourish of a full stop dot. Knowing that this was not what I wanted: the rows of chimney pots, red-rouged and boring in the dreich, mossed and...