Again, the sea bed splits – there

gushes forth all kinds of noise;

a gaggle of gases, bubbling up, the deaf

groaning of huge stones, turned twice and

dragging a voyage to warmer climes -

the weeds all tangle, flung oysters snap

for now the depths are shifting and

bubbles line up like a staff, vertical and reaching

out to join all unknown skies, risen by all unseen hands -

the cycle must continue, so

silts are kicked, new sands are tossed,

all race toward the surface where

oil-slicked skeins are sucked up fast

in most unseasonal sunlight. Vapour's made

like ghostly dreams; long mists and vast

clouds rise from waves, from nowhere, yet

they roll eastwards from the ocean's clatter.

They soon meet others, blind fog lifts,

sea-spray ascends – together they're coughed

on foreign winds, tides of ages, scattered like milk

over those fabled mountain ranges. Steady, slow

sentinels, fattened on Cambrian dancing airs

they wait for new conditions, for the land

to welcome which is theirs' – when all is right

they let loose their cargo, nets are sliced,

rain falls hard on ancient soils.

Hammering mud where drop meets drop;

streams are carved from trickle, torrent -

much is lost to reeds, the grasses, some

tumbles off the sodden slopes.

More dives in stone, through cracks in earth

on layers of grim, volcanic rock

where once this land collided, there, the

permeation stops. A pause, then:

Up, and up, and up! – pressure demands

with prehistoric forces

we trench our way to daylight, come

crashing out, now foaming, white,

smoothing down the pulsing wall -

a continuous birth, a waterfall, a river starts

unending trails: back and back, and back to home.

We grow beside brooks, and remember each spring

how it seeped through the flooring -

bringing such thoughts, dampening dust -

the air will change, even now, as we lie

all bound in to our notional seasons,

melting hilltops, reasons to leave.

Clamber through bracken, catch sight of

woodsmoke, the tricks of trees, language held

in breathing bowls. Hammering, and

a child's laughter cuts old years.

Inside, those clocks do things you wouldn't believe -

bringing such thoughts, dampening dust -

up here, the snows have already begun,

falling with the precision of needles.

Doors drag themselves, and we're thrust through,
reeling from signs that flicker and switch
with shutter-speed trips, cutting this way and back.
We take pains avoiding inky gazes -

the rural, the fattened, locked into their wrists,
caught up in the stars, the columns of tales -
families, lost wives, the barking, the sad
the girls who've murder cut into their hands.

The morning’s still flashing, in typical ways -
attempting to prove that changes can come
from this tepid wash of old Welsh skies, these
towns pulled from marshlands, the days have drained

such wonders! They built with all intentions -
riveted, nailed, knocked up by top hats,

industrious line upon line, now held for ever

in ghost-faced postcards praised at small stations.

The banks break my sight, and somebody tuts

at the sun slashing through the unmoving blinds.

A shot of blue, a stretch of silt is caught before

the settlements sprint towards us.

Your hair changed with the seasons, falling

straight with the scent of ammonia and

the tangles teased each morning in your

pointless set of rituals. Those days

it happened to be red, but never mind -

Spring was on its way.

Back then, we'd walk along this stretch

of muds, and silts, and flats, and where

we'd see the traces left by birds -

freckling the estuary. We'd try our best

to not worry one another -

gloved hands held tight the morning

It was days after the operation -

I traced the stitches where I’d kissed,

and began to beg to be let in. You

barely twitched the sheets aside, and

tried hardest not to move your head

or look towards the water.

We bore holes in us, as if attrition comes naturally.

Water does what water does, slowly builds more layers

while time comes on and throws us under inch-

thick crusts of residue. Slapped on fast, this way and

that, varnish up our weakest points so we can’t see

despite being flush against the panes – we stay

sitting, smoking slowly, refining the crudeness

of our gestures until we pump ourselves outside

even then, nothing can remind you of the time

when our selves glinted, shiny new:

hips crackle and spit, and something silver corrugates lips

with not quite words slagged out in heaps.

The surface widens, this much is clear, yet

great, wet wheels turn and count the days in single strands.

Reduced to a specimen, a set of samples:

hours kept stock in chimney stacks, broken bones

piled up kisses, the taste of iron.

My memories clamber under skies,

fuming full of terracotta and the days before:

when our mouths moved, and music came.

Half way down, the curves grow wider,

centuries scored their vast meanders.

Unmanned boats are cradled lazily from

market town to floodlands.

Mornings are caught as they flicker through reeds -

I ascertain who comes or goes

by reading the peaks in these dim, varied shows

of slanting, rhythmic, white-wet lights.

Our footsteps follow wakes. Consider,

each pace through even the kindest streets

has been proceeded by those ships, who

pushed hard, and whipped through kindly straits

with the airs of continental drift. A hold

of the same packed-in humanity we all hold -

stained with salt, slapped up, cut out -

chains upon their ankle-bones

bruising, generations deep. Still,

we are taught to understand these ills, and

laws leer at historical fault

lines cut in foreign stone.

Boats look different, now:

the kindest streets hold plaques

dedicated to our sea-change. Liberation names

bridges, bank to bank, then to now. Slavery sank,

only to shadow a different face: cheeks

stained with salt, slapped up, cut from

mountain towns. Now, Eastern girls get caught, hooked up

on ships, beneath bridges that look more welcome

now shackles are more subtle.

This light-dusted town, pocked with memories,

drags these feet between old blocks. Patina shifts, and the

soils of years harden, I am swerved -

westward and that way, past new wives,

shivering children, bottle-green voices,

those who sell and those locked in

to hands scratching deep, having grappled at mornings -

the bakers have left, the workers are hid. Somewhere

the sun does its thing, defying the wash

of British temptations, of time spent downwards,

avoiding the days. A path appears - surprising

one who spent time abroad – yet it holds the usual

glittering discs, and tightly packed wraps

of chemical compounds all set for the night,

boxes for boxes, and watery tea

infused with the times of the river.

For the river heads south, this much is true,

and I'd been away for years at a time,

so I look down to the banks, and I spy the stones

making a meandering way to the mouth.

Horizons shimmer, water slices

this city in two, so I step on

bridging between slow erosion, and shops -

Fate cuts no hands, but my legs are compelled

to step down a street that my tendons had lost. I'm struck

at a window, piled high with desires -

softly forced rocks, all strung up on silver,

jaspers and jets, vivid value in earth,

selected for those who compelled to pass on

slices of India, mined out by a man

whose coalface was lamplit, maybe decades ago.

My eye follows wands tipped sweetly with orbs

knocked out of amber, suspending old lives.

It passes through pages, tinted expressions

exclaiming small magics, ways to heal, odes to fix

heartbreak, the shingles, the lamest complaints -

it rest on the store-girl, she's caved in receipts, and

struts on the side of a pretty collection

of bangles and phone lines, old records, deceptions

reserved for those who know their base. A loose

piece of info catches my breeze, and movement

makes movement, we both bend to the floor.

She knows all the deals, and chips me away,

shows me a stone that will change my days.

Time is eaten, and weeks petrify

in bed-shapes, hollows, ashtrays carbon-date poses.

We identify awhile as one.

Yet day after day, something stops mouths

all swollen and sore - I look at her stones, and

can't stop myself mocking;

Energy, auras, cosmic detritus, green eyes

and faith makes me harden, and shift;

such attrition occurs, and mouths become cruel.

Erosion erodes, we're carried in rivers

downstream, downstream, toward the sea -

Now, elsewhere, I notice the beaded masses

polished and plucked, and laden with rocks.

New wives, shivering children,

bottle-green voices

gather at windows, gazing to wish

at millennia structured in glittering cuts -

a slice of India, something to pass

to lovers who live on dry land.

shrieking boat-wood, tossed by force -

we watch oars rise to
tear a wake; filth and lunacy, panicked cheers

drift past to their dampened end.

Quite suddenly, seconds trail,

soft dusk descends. Boys pat backs

for a year of dirt, churned months and days, a

furrowing of long, fine mists.

To the next town flows

fast black water:

a shattering reminder.

When we're together, I'm trailing in the surf,

my eyes picking away where small waves pull in

and out, following the hollows left by your feet -

always a minute or two behind, trying to find

something half-buried and dragged in to my toes,

a memory to wash off, pocket, and bring back home.

Perhaps I call, my voice fighting with the wind,

but you're eager for the rocks, you've seen something

disappearing up ahead. Away you go, inland, inland.

Every seven seconds, we collide on the sand

we gathered when we drifted here – all old cups and papers,

residue, coasters, things to help quit smoking,

a marriage contract pulling back and forth,

ourselves from ourselves.

We lie, buffeted

by the flotsam of our years.

Outside, summer passes,

and we find with some amazement

that the moon still has a pull. The bath tub’s caked

and gummed with days. The window’s started splitting,

letting in more rain.

Downriver, great tails

dash the seas, and we barely face each other.

Slowly we have let slip
through rains and rivulets, hands
which traced old eyes on sands -

thoughts that crossed old seas,
crawling with little Jonahs
warm within great bellies

who, once saved, once coughed back,
gasping beg
to be tossed under

to gulp faith, find home within
some evil-smelling womb -
all pulped pages, numbered days,

krill and that which
brings forth the years
in the rolling shapes of more wet seasons -

still – time dives, time bellows,
it breaches; yet this morning
the waves brought only water.