towards the park and plants or buries it.

We wait, listless, aimless now it’s over,

ready for what follows, what comes after,

stood beneath an iron sky together,

awkwardly at first, until whenever.

ROBINSON’S LIFE SENTENCE

Rise early from a double bed,

take a shower, tie off the blind,

another dawn like open-heart surgery,

mosey downstairs, brew up, take time

over the papers, the results,

the notices, zip up, step out, bookworm

and browse down the high street,

pay for something by cheque or plastic,

see a man unhitch a sidecar

from his silver motorcycle, then

leave it there like a baby’s shoe,

meet a friend, make a new friend,

take a drink, eat, talk shop,

re-string the steel guitar, scratch out

a new tune, try out someone’s car for size,

buy oil or petrol by cheque or plastic,

make that call, write that card,

send out for supper, get stewed

on straight gin, turn in,

read a little, backpedal

through some old editions, crash out

and sleep like a bear, washed by wave

after wave of gentle dreams, but

wake again, and rise early.

SONG OF THE WEST MEN

To the far of the far

off the isles of the isles,

near the rocks of the rocks

which the guillemots stripe

with the shite of their shite,

a trawler went down

in the weave of the waves,

and a fisherman swam

for the life of his life

through the swell of the sea

which was one degree C.

And the bones of his bones

were cooler than stone,

and the tide of his blood

was slower than slow.

He met with the land

where the cliffs of the cliffs

were steeper than sheer,

where the sheep had to graze

by the teeth of their teeth.

So he put out again

for the beach,

and made it to lava

that took back his skin

to the feet of his feet,

and arrived at a door

with a tenth of a tale

that was taller than tall,

as cold and as bled as a man

from a fridge. But he lived.

The good of the good

will come this way, they say:

tattered and torn,

unlikely and out of the storm

if it comes at all.