I struggled through streets of
Bricked-up, boarded-up houses,
Mostly burned-out, keeping
...
Your voice on the telephone
Hushes the storm in my heart
Lightning strikes twice
...
Dawn's my Mr Right, already
Cocks have crowed, birds flown from nests,
The neon lights of Leeds last night still
...
Rejection doesn't lead me to dejection
But to inspiration via irritation
Or at least to a bit of naughty new year wit-
Oh Isn't it a shame my poetry's not tame
...
In sleep I dream the gratitude I know I cannot say
Now you are in a latitude where palm trees hold the sway
There are always things between us that keep getting in the way
...
At ten she came to me, three years ago,
There was ‘something between us' even then;
Watching her write like Eliot every day,
...
Sorry, Neil Oram (with an orange in my pocket)
I can't make ,your loch-side commune by bonny Drummadrochit.
...
Two nights I have dreamed of you
Once as an adolescent, evanescent
Yet tangible still to the spirit's touch,
...
L'orage qui s'attarde, le lit dйfait
Yves Bonnefoy
Here am I, lying lacklustre in an unmade bed
A Sunday in December while all Leeds lies in around me
In the silent streets, frost on roof slates, gas fires
And kettles whistle as I read Bonnefoy on the eternal.
Too tired to fantasize, unsummoned images float by,
Feebly I snatch at them to comply with the muse's dictum: write.
The streets of fifties summers, kali from the corner shop,
Sherbet lemons and ice pops, the voice of Margaret at ten,
What times will have done to you, what men
Used and abused you?
Solitary but not alone I read Lacan on desire
It is not a day I can visit the ward
Overcome by delusion's shadow.
...