Will You Always Bring Me Oranges?

When I am sick,
Will you always bring me oranges?
Will you always stir my tea,
And bring me newspapers to read?

Will you stand in my doorway,
A beauty in the half light,
And declare to one so ill
That you love him still?

And when my fever finally subsides,
And the shivering has stopped,
Will you lay with me again,
Pressed up tight against my skin?

I hope to see you when we're old,
And our skin has sagged and wrinkled,
And all that we dare drink is tea
And newspaper print's too hard to read.

When I am sick,
Will you always bring me oranges?
I promise I'll do the same.

The Country Life

At what price the country life?
Time to dream of lost ambition
Realised. Even so, the sky
That hangs uncreased by wind

Would fit so well on me;
Or so it seems.
These feet, that long
To wear the earth,

So too are scared to rest.
The minds of great men
Reach outwards and turn back
Again. And what of mine?

To the East

We walked this night, you and I,
In a space reserved for lightning strikes
And littered corpses,

Over the upturned skulls, of mice and men.
You were not there and the road was empty;
In the moonlight I could see for miles.

Under the branches of a dead oak
I kicked at imaginary leaves
And fell down to sleep amongst them.

Dreams came upon me like forgotten friends.
In the first I was both Hero and Leander,
And the beacon still burned.

In the second I was only myself.
Thrust into a giant storm cloud,
I shot bolts of lightning into the sea.

In the final dream, I was the sea itself,
And I carried the burden of a thousand ships,
Drifting sadly to a thousand ports.

I awoke, exhausted, to the heat of flames.
Rushing through them I lifted my head
And set off to the east.

"I give up", she says
In that exemplary tone,
Halfway between sadness
And grievance.

"It just won't sound
The way I want it
To sound, even after
All this effort".

She stands and fishes
For her worn shoes,
Stamping her feet
Into the open mouths.

Bending to tie her laces
In her unusual fashion,
She becomes aware of
A great pressure.

With something like
An Orlean storm
Pressing down upon her,
She misses the loop.

"I don't suppose you
Could ever understand
The way I feel now,
Or will feel tomorrow."

Gathering strength in
These foreign words,
She rises up
From her knee.

Secure now, she turns
To face the ashen door.
"Will you always be
What I want you to be?”

His eyes follow her
Hand upon the latch.
One small effort
And then she is gone.

Hey Gull...

Hey Gull,
This is not the sea,
This murky serpent
Lain out 'fore us.
It draws a filthy course
That we both cheat
By crossing different ways.
One side her,
The other I,
And you, neither, nor
Should it be so.
My line draws north yet
Through bricks and mortar
Set against the furnace glow
Of sunset.