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  Owl, mellow in the

  Evening, meowing like

  A widowed cat,

  Reaching for a chord

  To free.

  CARRION EAGLE

  With no residual predator but hate

  the eagles fish with impunity,

  beyond surfeit, beaming down cloud-high

  to target every quarry by the sea

  that scurries.

  Their juveniles, just loosened,

  wearing white sagacity as cover, are

  indiscriminate in aim. Their

  eyes like oil spots betray no pleasure

  in the killing – no quiver.

  They capture prey on film, lead-running,

  and cleanse; leaving carrion.

  “LEAP, FROG!”

  Our frog, in the way that he was sitting,

  looked comical, not like a frog

  at all, and disconnected from his leg

  and ledge.

  Was he troubled, or in love? Was

  a tadpole missing? While we were guessing

  a snake snaked her way to

  the edge.

  Frog was distracted, preoccupied, an

  unintentional fool, and his protruding

  eyes looked out, but also in, as if

  to dredge

  the Archaean. But snake meanwhile,

  more at ease on land than lake, slipped

  by, flicked her lips, then headed for

  the hedge

  beyond. We could not fathom why she

  missed her dinner, why frog was unperturbed,

  as we would kill for food, but also for

  a pledge.

  ECLIPSE 2011

  A conjuring god is eating her

  raw, incrementally, savouring

  buttock-like portions in

  invisible bites, using

  enveloping ash as a screen.

  The audience leans west, tracking

  revolution, eager to see through

  the sleight, anxious for the

  emergence through involution,

  of an undigested moon.

  SEVEN

  Sevenths

  HER BATH

  She stopped to murmur as he slept, “what is it

  that is left? Opaque nails on bleached feet? An

  uncaged sac? The promise of a doctor’s visit!”

  She cocked an ear and listened to his phlegm

  pop. (It sounded anachronistic, like a man

  blowing through the stem

  of his Dr. Plumb). And then, unexpectedly, the suck

  cut. She reached for air and began,

  meticulously, to check his pipe was clear, that muck

  was not the cause. She even turned him onto

  his side and away from the fan

  and tapped him, but sensed that he did not want to

  breathe; so she left the room to hang a vest spilt

  yellow by his soup. At six, when bugles used to blow, she ran

  a scented bath; but guilt

  again caused her to stop, again to pose

  the question; “what is it that is left? How can

  I enjoy a bath with a tag tied round his toes?”

  BREAKING NEWS

  Half a life is not enough, not

  to stop the vagus chill

  the heart the way it does, not

  when spit sets. I still,

  despite my age, dart

  fast beyond the damning

  comment, and contemplate retreat,

  escape, even nescience;

  But that half, that part

  that parries, is much aware that patients’

  sense is touch, not word, not gaucherie,

  and it, the grey, will feel them hear

  the news, and clasp

  with liver strength, their fright, their fear.

  GULL LEGS

  Her red legs were far too thin

  to run on sand, thinner even

  than a child could draw, and all that

  I could truthfully see were

  comical wire-knot knees bobbing,

  (looking more like eyes caught

  in a beam than proper knees),

  but somehow connected to the

  purposeful scurry of her weight.

  It was obvious that she was after

  easy bait, (she was arguably unable

  to compete for the live stuff), but

  what if her legs should break!

  What then! As a doctor was it

  not my purpose to warn her?

  So I shouted above the brittle crack

  of the slapping waves: “Stick to the water

  Gull and use your flipper webs. You have

  no legs to speak of, not really,

  and,” (with some sarcasm),

  “you could of course still fly.”

  There was pause while she turned

  with a retinal flash, and her eyes

  (they gave me the creeps to tell you

  the truth) went black, black as beads.

  “My wings will snap before my legs,

  and my feet are made of salt.

  Do you,” (with some sarcasm),

  “still want me to try, or would you

  rather I default? ”

  She left me with my own thin and

  precarious legs gripping the shifting strand,

  trying to tease out the meaning of her reprimand,

  to decipher what is was about,

  to determine whether I belonged at

  sea, in air or on land.

  ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG PATIENT

  I went to sing

  for her the hymn of a thousand

  boys, the school hymn; to sing,

  sing like a compulsory pilgrim

  in sweet bellow, borrowing octaves.

  He went to bring

  for them smoke, smoke-scented

  flowers, catholic hope; to bring

  for them wafers, wafers and blood, (sapid

  blood) to nourish new graves.

  I went to wring

  from her milk, milk and love

  hands, live hair; to wring

  from her living, living; but he suckles contented

  his aunt, and he waves, and he waves.

  LION

  If you want a lion to lose his pride

  feed him sugar, (soak it in blood if you like

  or spike it with fear), then watch from the side

  line while crystal sweet poison mingles

  and gels with his spit.

  Watch from afar if you will, but

  peering breath-close is preferred, preferred

  to observe Iago at work, leaching, leaching a gap

  in his tooth, seeping, seeping into his rage

  till his women are split;

  then witness your abscess make war, civil

  war. Your lion will lose most of his mane of

  course, like they all do, live off lame rabbit, and swivel

  to fend off sharp giggles from the hideous

  cubs that he bit.

  Your assessment may be that it’s cruel,

  this process. You might even see it as a repetitive, diabolical

  joke, a tempt-fork tipped with ridicule

  that simply goes too far; but you’ll never still the audience

  nor break the lion habit.

  MUMMY

  She lay, obediently, soon smoke, like clay.

  A remnant for remembrance, supine

  and heat-still with drawn, wax

  eyes, drawn lovingly to simulate

  pared death, a dormancy, mere interval.

  We entered, all entered into compensatory

  pretence, making her more comfortable

  by tucking in her quilt, each

  giving up his seat, each hushed and

  reverent, to sanitate her peace,

  feeding sparrows her final bread,

  while trolley-clank leant normalcy to grief.
/>   RETINA

  The retina is Mars when seen

  An hour after atropine,

  A concave Mars, an orange-red

  Disc suspended in dendrites that thread

  And nourish and mock the optical illusion

  Of 6Lowell’s ‘canals’.

  And when the retinal plate

  is sick with flame haemorrhages and exudates,

  Mars is closer still. Sugar, smoke

  And pressure may be at fault, but they stoke

  A universal and terrible confusion

  That tightens the bowels.

  6 The Astronomer, not the poet.