Stug Jordan Poems

I am not a poet.
I have not been to university:
no old lecturers have singled me out
for special things to come,
...

Just to think how close we came to ill repute
by signing off our names, to hold heavy hands
in the long corridors of the magistrate’s court;
or to have the weaker of the two sold to the vicar,
...

He wakes up to rain on his window,
the wash of gutters and drains
in the street; an early car starting;
the yawn of a garden gate –
...

And Adam said he would prefer
To be alone,
Anaesthetised on god’s table
Before the operation,
...

The path knew before the footstep;
even before the ghost of a shape
passed above the stones and mud.
...

I look at her family as though
I had been born into it,
to imagine her ancestors as mine,
and that our relationship is almost incestual,
...

Gotti loved Letti,
and a house to let they got,
and Gotti was pretty.
...

Lucky is the rain,
For its concealment is sublime,
When absorbed by openness
And rid of counterparts;
...

1.

Three months had already been spent
When he read a newspaper for the date;
...

She listened to them call the swelling
Of her pregnancy a bundle, like laundry
Unfolded before washing, to be spun
Around her belly:
...