Elderberry globules

constellating silver and black,

hang, waving a dangled cluster

of dendrites, each with a full-stop

of juicy bounty longing

to explode blue-black links

between a tree root, leaf and fruit

and out into an inky mouth that flies

away, winging air: a fountain of creation.

Palms

Four palm trees near a house

rattle neighbours green and brown;

all are rising from a core

with stems that gesture into yellow,

translucent as they swish and grow:

September ancients rising from a floor.

Four palm trees near a house

orange and green, can you see

the sun catch edges on their rind,

rattling a cache of sound.

This is a soft place; sit with me,

four palms and a house behind.

Leaves are golden through the sun

and, as the early clouds begin,

I’m thirsty in my head

for a lady away asleep

from yesterday when day was gone

and now she dreams through early heat.

Late September, autumn soars

and leaves tremble their own tone,

musical in ochre air:

pleasure’s here, pleasure’s there,

our time vibrates away and then

moon no longer stirs in silver hair.

It’s hours since an ashen moon

fled the air, the sky, and soon

between the spiky leaves that blur

the air with rustle, there I hear

a breath arising softly, blow

a salty wind, a single word.

Four palm trees near a house

stained green and golden, can you see

honey fills them to the core;

the colour of her hair is more

like grey and gold, come see

and hear and feel this elemental time with me.

Sermon

I met a man on a coastal path
who’d picked up fossils, amenites,
and stuffed them in a backpack as his plunder

on a superstellar mission
to grant his rocks a sharper blow
and let them out, whack them

from their cage into his light and space.
It would be very good for them;
to rest within his cabinet of freedom.

Port Mulgrave, Yorkshire

Here they make lobsterpots garish;

yellow, purple, dayglow green

dumped on the pier in a ragamuffin heap

with buoys bright orange at the end of a rope

and a seagull rises, plaintive away

on a silvery wind, the tang of the sea

and a wolf whistle calls a dog back to heel

in a pull from a master, pull from a man.

In brine, these colours are nonsense

but smelling the bait, to gobble and grow,

spikey and spiney I’ll butt in your cage man

and sail to your surface – a world I don’t know

and swing like a clapperless bell,

tentacles turning, waving and heavy and drowning.

Blueberry lust

Blue in sunlight, stationary, a planet

waits for plundering. Before the fall

- come on vampires, suck my blood speedily:

dusky and fertile, take me now - I’m yours.