From living colonies
a path to higher ground,
a worn trail winds.
...
By the four limes, boughs hoisted skywards
from bumpy boles, their suckers cut to ground,
huddled the snowdrops I had quit seeking
in stone-prisoned castle compounds.,
...
4 (ii)
The cry went up: there; s someone here
from Television! Bend your ear,
ambitious slut and pushy guy,
...
I ran away from him too many times,
through all the stages of delusion.
Now I have nothing but my singing rhymes.
...
This is a parterre, much larger
than what you think of as a “knot, ”
smaller pattern of line and colour.
...
I saw Mandela in the Strand
as near to me as you now stand,
in a Royal Visitor's car
with motorbikes on every hand
...
He swung in through the unlocked door
into the winter colours of the house,
a small can of black fish on his arm,
a haddock and two patterned mackerel.
...
Tinker, Windsor castle,
Tailor, Savile Row,
Soldier, head of regiment,
Sailor, Heave-ho.
...
The Mouseman walks to the church
at the village axis, its pool
of garden, walled round dead,
bears rose and hawthorn, tended
...