Dead, but not yet still

I love to see ivy on dead trees.
Sublime, insinuating.
Covering, to become other.
Slender tendrils probing forward;
Like fingers of an evil spiite
On long scrawny hands.
Trying to raise the dead?
What hope of succeeding?
While the bitter churchyard birds
Peer with bright eyes
From sinister leafy places.

Rag Remnants

And now the leaves will go,

Already frost-damaged in January.

Here are those sly, black birds

Gliding nearby.

They’ll peek and peck

Until the shivering stalks of branches,

Quivering cold,

Lose all their early buds.

And what’s to come?

Rag remnants, perhaps,

All torn to lace.

The ducks are flying over Deptford.

Their quacks blend in with traffic noise,

Small shadows

In an amber sky.

The city skyscapes

Show distant crags in an endless sea.

All is grey and sinister
Just on the edge of churning.

Black Notebooks Given In A York Hotel December 2006

They gave me black notebooks.
A present for my birthday,
The ivory pages were soft
And ready to receive.
The pen in my hand was insistent.
Black notebooks
To record a time of change.
And those who gave them
Would not meet again.
They knew it then for the first time.
And the covers of those black notebooks
Became a mourning coat
For opportunities not taken.