Background

Eyes that squint,
and all the world
gone as dim as the Louve.

Behind that Mona Lisa
the Hollywood Hills
relinquish their little secrets.

Things are changing,
too slow to be noticed.

This is the other light
beyond the light –

if only you can wait for the day,
so dazzling, so cavalier,
to crumble,

you might discover there
the better meaning of relief,

like the secret map
Da Vinci tried to keep
from treacherous clutches.

Meaniwhile, on top of Everest
a seabed is lurking.

Trout

You can string together
a thousand streams and lakes,
and never notice
that the fish in your hand
has all the weight and promise
of a new accordion
which, of course, you can't play.

I remember a time when the trout seemed loaded,
like a purse. With my knife,
I made the neat slit of a burglar:
from the studded jewellery of the gut,
gouts appeared, as big rubies,
and scales covered my blade like little diamonds.

When the crime was done,
I was left with the fish - a silken glove,
ungodly on my gauche hand.

[Mountain . . .]

That Mountain,
that ship of the sky
riding the slashing blades
of hard weather,
of steely clouds,
of solar glint,
until it moors

in cradles
near waiting mothers,
in the quiet and the blue
hearts of those fathers
who wait on granite decks

to nourish
with bitter prayers
the light of heaven,
the light that feeds
on your grain, on minerals,
on the colours of dawn,
on the plans of chaos.

Siesta

Cheetahs dozing in the arms.
Buffaloes grazing in the feet.

The mind, a secreted octopus
jammed in a rockshelf.

An Orphic swan
caught in the shoulders

and a squirrel curled
in the stomach.

In the ears, bees,
in the eyes, fish,

and the heart,
rumour has it,
some kind of a trout.

Untitled- You can have your ice . . .

You can have your ice, and your salt -
I settle for the eternal

in the smell of burning newspaper

on a glowing morning
when others are working

and I am suited
for the company of sparrows

who hop from the shadows
and settle for little.

The Rock Pool

When the shouting began,
I would head for that planet
where human speech is illicit,
my brain-in-a-vat.

Hooked up to a snorkelpipe,
my face all clapped and strapped
into leaking goggles,

I would tractor across the crackpot looms,
the boundless tidings and traps,

purling and whirring,

stirring the sky-sea juncture,

pausing to hover in Whistler rooms
with the odd squid,
with the starfish, half-baked,

or searching for the bloom
of a hollow shell
dipped in luminous glaze,

or watching a wound-up toad fish
dart for the gloom.

Troubled skull

Troubled skull,
you ancient decanter,

never minding
that your days

of being intact
and holding wine

are over.

Excavation
is taking

these most careful of fingers

their lifetime.

Masterpiece

Out there, you craft the water -
but here, in our hands, you make it spill.

To win your affection, we find ourselves
balancing
stone on stone.

We put the flame
to our loyalty,
speaking ill of the dead.

No plan can work –
we hide the weapon in our mind,
as forgotten as a face.

We roast
in our splendid coats
in the midday sun
while the arches of our trust

break under the weight
of a chance meeting,

and nowhere are we closer
than when we have strayed.

At your feet,
we throw down our fortune,
claiming to be more needy than the poor.

Later, our tell-tale tracks
lead them to us,
while across the sand

our own dogs
follow our scent,
barking for our taste.

In the meantime,
you give us bells to ring –

and we swallow them.