1.
A tented loft space
the folk memory
of a life of postings
from programme to diary
items without currency
form the richest evidence
a cardboard box full
settled by damp into the fold-marks
of its construction
where pencilled notes on clouds cram margins
spilling into the gutters of journals
and petals are flush between endpapers’ marbling
what the moment brings to life
may die by the trigger of memory
victim of the accident of inconsistency
so trust the camera’s black-and-white lies
and prove by the guillotine of its shutter
the imposition of the single perspective
to justify whatever might be said
in the headlines of sepia newsprint pages
recovered from latterday uses
compressed beneath a pot or tray
upon the radiated windowsill, where
this rank of cacti stands up for the status quo.
2.
A lampshade full of yellow light
the breath of the tobacco moth
shadow boxing silence
above the vanity unit where
she once backcombed her hair
into a demobbed beehive
on what they call Civilization Street
nothing but a ciggie and a comb
to salvage when they break the seal
we saw trees like these in Rhineland
by night, the massed ranks of the stars
falling in and falling out
the smell of fallen leaves that drew him back
flying into London, the avenue
and the last gasp of a bonfire
a voice that said if I were quaking in your boots
I’d take a post at the printing works
friend you stand on sacred ground
days hammered out in headlines
that leap across the breakfast table
as if to obligate us in their jaws
and turn mid-flight to mayflies
which dry, and yellow, and are spread
on greenhouse shelves, or packed in drawers.
3.
Either a wardrobe or a gramophone
so now we’ve got Joe Loco with His Orchestra
and hang our jackets over the back of a chair
and take to eating with a fork
and know what’s happening in sport
and put another deadlock on the door
then drag open the shutters for this advent
of what is seen and what is taken in
what the window joins and what divides
the presence of every past inhabitant
sealed in the room’s accretions
of chipped and flaked paint painted over
the sudden redundant picture hook
or nibs where pin holes of removed
hooks and nails are overfilled
a cracking account of the sound barrier
and how it was broken breaking up
the drone of a radio play
so sling the webbing under the bedding
tip the tacks from out that old tobacco tin
whose label on the lid is biro on elastoplast
knowing the only objects in the room
he sees are those not yet assembled
of themselves, or in his mind.
4.
He could be constructing a future
as aviator, sculptor, or how about
jockey of flat-pack furniture
whose piecemeal career is coming together
numerically between his hands
aided by instruction sheet and tube of glue
shards of flying surfaces squared up
symmetrical and fit to fly as any transfer-printed vase
in the shadows of the hangar of the china cabinet
glazed in what we half suspect is camouflage
the patchwork of a plane tree trunk
one along an avenue of ornaments
where as I write, the scenery is tumbling down
in autumn circuits that are endless
lazy flights of canvas foliage
superfluous as falling notes in orchestrated jazz
ubiquitous as obituaries posted for crumpled jazzmen
the common expectation of the stars
slugged to death by linotype
gagged beneath a mask of printing ink
ridden over by the rollers of a Heidelberg
the letterpress delivery of history
where yesterday’s facts are inevitably dissed
for the composition of tomorrow’s fiction.
5.
Walking home after the night shift
the printers’ humour with its frazzled edge
fastidiousness worn so casually
he holds his hat against the wind along the cut
the simmering lead of the water
dull as roof slates and twice as tempting
so watch the clouds, and not be taken in
but keep one eye always on the weather
topic for breakfast conversation
one integrity, two symmetry, three chaos
his latest effort toward constructing the simplest model
fit to accommodate the window’s view
view upon view, the dated journals
telling how the contrails of jets
rasp their calcium across the slate sky
then collapse into a basket-weave
that quivers to the echo of a footfall
marching across the great hall
where thousands of pages of shorthand notes
may not suffice to catalogue the kind
or lack of compliance to kind of clouds
the day volcanic ash was news
that filled this dome with silence
like snow within a shaken globe.
6.
A helicopter clatters up
chrysanthemums in a coffee pot
the stirring nickel teaspoon that chimes obsessively
machinery for shouldering the X of its anxiety
provoking him to notice and hardly for the first time
how even the Seville marmalade’s in shreds
heavy weather lugged like trolleys
with broken castors across the sky
wind that makes a shadow puppet of a tree
the storm whose name rang a bell
in all the local churches, then
just when we thought it never would, passes
all those forecasts now in traction here
healed by the splints of the window frame
or else discharged and shuffling past
slippered feet on broken glass
or hailstones as it might be
bright seconds from an age of stratocumuli
wall to wall and even more lovely than the carpet
whose pattern they pronounced unrepeatable
soft you tread on my credulity
and settle as we will for the take it as you find it
ilk of this subsistence, lees of wine or coffee grounds,
the dying rumble of the tumble drier.