'F'

Fff: my favourite word stopped short,
in the nick of time. Voiceless air
dissolves from teeth and gums
like sand through fingers,
or an hour glass.

'F for Failure': the red-ink smear of Tabloid red.
In the font of blood they baptise Gods:
a dizzying cycle of winch and drop,
winch and drop... ascension,
uplift, sag and fall... fall.

Brains bloat like sponges, swelled;
wires clog with soot, ash
and silicon - the seam of moist grime;
eyes grope a pair of double Fs...
a bit cheap?

The Long Drive to Ithaca

(Tiger Woods)


Eagle-eyed scrutiny
in a talon's clasp -
the taunting grasp
of knowing fingers.

Rapid uplift,
coil
and uncoil explosion -
thrust
with a rocket's trajectory.

Out of kilter -
his affirmative tick
droops under the grind
of spent, slackening cogs.

On the fairway's trim,
in the tree-top dapple,
with the fallen leaves
he stands.

Hiatus...
Pendulum swing...
Silhouette.

She arcs -
the curvature
of a hooked-beak,
primed,
breath tantalised
on the verge of imminence.

In the rushed embrace of gravity
she falls from height -
strikes the apex,
bites, rips,
rolls and writhes
in the ecstasies of wild precision -
a little death...

And a smile
penetrates his lips
in a succession of waves -
like the spread of electric tide.

"Lilies for Lily"

Sat in the pews
we pick up our cues religiously -
respectfully.

Gravity's noose -
so strange and numb.

You were country air,
garden gloves and secateurs,
the salt breezes of Sligo.

Not the type for slow-diffusal:
no shadow drift from life
but swiftness of light.

"Lilies for Lily" -
they crackle an outbreath
of plastic.

Beneath this crust
the sealed caves echo:
loss of warmth,
memory - a cold,
clogged sponge.

Under her weight
his tears drip
dense necklace pearls.