Poem: I Live On A Bridge Above The City

I live on a bridge above the city,

Moonlit above the slow-huddled traffic,
And I breathe a deep breath of night air,
Because, tomorrow, in daylight

I’ll stand amid the trams and roundabouts,
Halfbound for work and slightly stale,
Needing a moment to myself.

It’s silent on the bridge.
Here above it all I smoke a cigarette
And look down, and reflect on

The city speeding gradually below me,
Turning wheels within wheels,
But changing, occasionally, turning, into wheels...

Catherine wheels.

5 January 2006

Poem: Manor House Shanty

The slow noise of love encloses us
Enclosed within these sea-struck walls,
Pressed together with our words
Pressing against each others’ words.

Those surging words are not the sea
But their heart brims over;
The surge of them sweeps all along.

Swept in this same boat,
We drink a draught to move us on;
Unsteady on our feet we steer
Ourselves in echoes of photographs on the walls.

An island in a stretch of sea;
A risk taken and rewarded;
A gift given and gathered in
And pressed in and raised up,
Rising ever higher on the swell
Of the Manor House Hotel.

22 May 2004