When my lover became my enemy
I made my bed amongst winds
and drove the old road 'till my heart crashed.
...
a mass of moth-eaten cloud
threadbare and spun across
a bullish moon
...
A lapwing somersaults spring
flips over winter and back.
After a fast walk up long hills, my limbs
the engine of thought, where burn
bubbles into beck and clough to gill,
beneath a sandstone cliff balanced on a bed of shale
and held from hurtling by Scots pine
that brush a scrubby sky with cloud snow scutters,
I found a place to sit
by snapping watta smacking rocks
and wondered — how would it be for you?
And so, alone,
un-alone even, in my anger,
bring you here.
...
at first they recce,
easy,
around the edge of breath
then gathered gangs unleash
and breach
but the wind has no objective,
riding the slope of my roof
...
1
a wren,
perched on a hawthorn
low enough to skip
the scalping winds,
sang a scalpel song
seafrets drift
sheer along shorelines
listening to hail spray glass
and wind
and a waitress laugh
in a cafe without customers
I fell to fell thinking
* * *
a sullen light through vapor
thins a line of hills
the edge of everything is nothing
whipped by wind
watched on a webcam
bound to a bedpost
gag on my shaft
rose blush of road-kill rabbit
insides out on tarmacadam
* * *
cumulus in a tarn
its fast shadow
flees far hills
a wave of sleek grass
skiffs mist
my hand thought of her
a photograph
waiting to happen
* * *
this come-to-kill wind
rips at the root
here she comes
and there she goes
rushes bow to rime
I should shut down
close off
stop
if I could
how quick the mist
how quick
2
my lover, the assassin,
is beautiful
she has come to kill me
and I concur
just now she sleeps
but when she wakes I'm dead
her eyelids flitter
as I prepare her potions,
her delicious poisons
* * *
as she flew past a lick
of her melodic nectar
stuck to my wing,
making flight, for an instant,
sticky
but nothing preening couldn't fix
* * *
she asked about my heart,
its evasive flight;
but can I trust her with its secrets?
and does the merlin, in fast pursuit of its prey,
tell the fleeing lark
it is enamored of its song?
or the singing lark turn tail
and fly into the falcon's talons?
* * *
my heart, the cartographer, charts
to the waterline,
is swept back as the tide turns
wiping the map blank, wave
after moon-drawn wave
but it beats, my heart,
of its own volition
a lark sings winds rush reeds
walking home I stride these tracks
with her tread
the blurred thumbprint
of a smudged moon
3
it has gone on for days
strumming rushes
taking up tales,
taking them on
the fall of my foot,
on tufts
a stroke of light along a law lain in under a long cloud
I accrete—lichen to limestone
sphagnum to peat
* * *
late shadows gather in the dark
words unwrite
as they are written
unspeak
as they are spoken
songs sprung
from heart and lung
to tongue
unsung
* * *
drunk winds stumble over shuffling roofs
shake his sleep who dreams
a lost love
will not
let
go
recurring swirls
of old gold
blown light
you can't help
but be in it
as it opens
and falls back on itself
unfolds and unsays
I do not want to die
without writing the unwritten
pleasure of water
...
I forgot forget
amnesia
was lost to me
then a smooth
fur-free fruit
unnamed for days
until I found it
ripe
on my tongue
...
When my lover became my enemy
I made my bed amongst winds
and drove the old road 'till my heart crashed.
Where's the bypass?
Washing my shirts, wringing them out.
Hung in the breeze.
Water skips
undressed
over outcrops.
What it says is.
Wind,
roots in rock.
Lying on Long Tongue,
sun diffused in mist.
Easy sleep
without waking.
Edge of
displaced echoes
air around
and sound
of bird and 'plane
A swallow's glittering chitter.
...
walking up John Street
thinking of you
I saw a slash of sea
between houses
and felt — as always,
no matter mood,
its or mine —
as though
it was the source
of language
and language
the source of itself
...
what we have is
what there is
and who we are
and who we is
is love
...
simplicity
say sleep
or
shall we
shower
have an apple
you are
as I need
water
shall I move?
do you dream?
shallow snow
flesh
melt this
...
you gave me a white rose
put the lamp on the stove
it caught fire
the I Ching said
thunder above the lake
lightning in Baker Street
switched on the cooker
and blew a fuse
blue flash
you see
the whole experience
is electric
...
a mass of moth-eaten cloud
threadbare and spun across
a bullish moon
an animal wakes
when I walk in winter,
wrapped against
a withering wind,
solitary,
on a Solway flat
winter migrants gather
in long black lines
along a silver sleek
heads held back,
throats
thrust toward
an onshore rush
occasionally cruciform,
static
in a flying wind
as though
in obeisance
to the sea
retracing steps
washed out
by whimpering silt
each tide a season
in the pecking mall
they call as I approach,
an upright spelk
on their shelf,
gathering my notes
and theirs
we scavenge
ahead of our shadows
waiting for what
the tide brings in
or leaves out
purple,
hedged cloud
edged gold
hung
on silver slates
of sand
diverted
leaps of light
surrender water
risen
from rivulets
roughed
from rage
repealing waves
repeat
a curlew's
estuary echo
who,
but you
and the wind's
wake?
...
Tom Pickard (born 1946, Newcastle upon Tyne, England) is a poet, and documentary film maker who was an important initiator of the movement known as the British Poetry Revival.)
Valentine
simplicity
say sleep
or
shall we
shower
have an apple
you are
as I need
water
shall I move?
do you dream?
shallow snow
flesh
melt this
I recently met Tom at the University of Maryland. He is totally unpretentious; how refreshing!