the rope

Disconnected, an instability pervades it all: 
facts fell, even before;  but now they disappear. 
The close-cropped ground itself has changed, 
shape-shifting us to drift in stranger days – 
although we nod hello, or pass a word or two  

… while walking, as we reprise remaindered memories 
in closed and finite loops of rhythmic rumination, 
trying (too hard) to make sense out of change, 
we furrow in eccentric isolations;  untouched, 
to bake our bread with shriveled yeast, lacking any flour… 

… while we lurch from clutching-straw to breaking-straw 
in days chained end-to-end, unmarked by rituals or events, 
from which the guiding rope, the warp and weft have gone, 
replaced by estimated metres’ distance;  leaving 
a semblance of society, with awareness shaken loose… 

Birches

It’s now a desert spring, perhaps;
or continental (since we are no island in this main): 
of clear skies, warm days, cold nights… 

where magnolias reach up towards magnificence 
and cherry trees and hawthorns, and apples mixed with pears 
cascade promiscuously in pink and white undress 
on empty close-cropped ground / unpurposed / 
reminders of a world once-shared; 

hedged in by beech that thickens with intensity,
curled and pent and weeks away from springing 
against birches, silver-lit and black and thin,
etched stark and fine across an ice-blue sky 
~ improbable in clarity ~ and wholly out of reach ~ 

Refreshing sight but lacking touch, 
this hollow shadow spring evolves 
while distance spreads around us… 

Shaggy Dog

No time for sanctimony; 
never mind hypocrisy. 

My heart rose because yours slowed: 
You were a complete eejit 
who harmed our country greatly 
in the cause of your career.

But you’ve bluffed against the devil’s dice. 
Maybe hell will mend you now.