…sraightening spears
upalong, downalong…inside, outside
all the oxides of tin, by ‘eck
…how did it all begin?

this rising-falling tide that keeps on coming in
this veil-like diaphanous mother-of-pearl cinema curtain
that seems to never quite and only then
...surprise, surprise

…after all the pearl-and-dean and hart’s ice cream
upalong-downalong waiting
going-going…gong, both sides of...sailing by?
…bear it if you can, take a deep breath

…hyperventilate even
take a turn, or turn your head
take these lines
hold the ocean of this sea your mouth

…mind you, mind we, this maw, or
spit it out...here, take my hand this craft, or boat
to get the word-hang
…long since neander mouthfuls heamatite and blew...

…okay, so what’s to say-about this elephant ride
inside its darkened room?
…we’re on, so trip together now...steady, let’s say we’re on
the kind of holiday those dancers might have known...

…see penwith as a bit like ancient crete
somewhere to take, or bring the kids up short from athens
until it all goes pear with broken promisers
the annual tribute king problem

failing to make a sacrifice the gods
about his rights to a kingship still extant
six thousand years of patriarchy
since minoans took helm

…choreography meets origami on a swing
it’s theseus, it’s ariadne good endings
…it’s time for bed…so satisfy
or safen your fasty belts

…we’re going upalong, up-through the midden of memory
without a mnemonic song or vice to help us through what passes
long before the snows of all our animal intact, the great
green, grey, gooey, greasy, limpopo-whole nine…

…rudyard of it going right along...my mum, incidentally
recalls seeing over her cake, a certain mr. kipling
scribbling notes on deck, all over his white cuffs
the boat back from Bombay

must have been ambidextrous...
digress why don’t we, drop a name on deck…
all this geography between us still to do
right round and write, or right each corner left again...

…politics?
suffice it’s in and out this labyrinth or beast
to stand beside ourselves, apart, or
in the listening sea...someone needs, or

only to forget to write to mr. death
to have the missis, his missis, that’s mrs. death write back
…we’d like to thank you kindly for that…
…that letter you haven’t written yet…

…we get a lot of this complaint
…the flowers, all the chocolates…
…odd, polite, not’s one might expect  
great figures from greek mythology

…so, this is the unspeakable
seriously upper-cased girl, koré, or persephone
but in what voice-mail...some kind of, royal ‘we’?
…time to read, or listen up

quite keen the ken to get the barbie of it now
so sharpen up...promiscuous with atoms
…un-naming  parts, we hold you in our view...
this mrs. death gets some great pauses

…we’re kind of glad to hear
…you’re kind of feeling better...
…still caught with life, that’s nice...
(caught under the wire looking up, more like)

and she gets to talk in parentheses already?
...only, to have one round again
…one’s jealous wind come hunting  
… in one’s chimney place…

…to laugh or cry with one at mirror’s
…soon to be forgotten face...you get to put some
…pressure on the ‘we’...one howls ( …and we get the picture)
...then you, your level best…

...your little mew forgets your little ship’s
…what is this ship if not soliloquy’s
…far-sighted aim, each to a man’s another lifeboat out of
…it’s too dark inside this geet cow’s coming down back out

…the Daedalus, or adit’s tale of unmined metaphor...
can we, should we stake any claim un-mixed or un-mined
without first being stuffed the carbs of cliché
the pumped up pecs to take on metaphor…without a pick?

...day two
…so now you’re scraping, is it
…scraping off all day one’s careful
…and this you call making good ground?

…life’s a wreck to be forcing with
go on, tell us about it mrs. doyle
go on, go on, go on, go on…
...even you were feeling good the off

…from way back when before beginning’s
…once upon a time had time enough to kill
…before the time that land forgot went upalong
…went up a loft and all the crows up-through flew down

 …and in until your little tide went out again and didn’t come
 …or even back, come-to...or is it something that the children say
...please can we stay?...they can, of course
…and there is something you can do right now

…low tide you cannot fix
…look back from five o’clock at five feet six
…stick out, stick up and into space
…by twenty three this far along…

…you only came to hang out west’s
…go west young man, meanwhile
…you fish the also ran that rises much too soon
…much sooner than we can...

…Orpheus?
pass the morpheus, or
…phew
the final curtain?

I’m done...or might this terra-firma here
cognate in us, here bind...
in-bound are other pigments
pig-head moments, mammons…

monsters more alterious
more serious the game surreal of consequence
to consign this head, this body armed these legs
and if the fishing really does become as good...

…we’ll have to give up painting mind, mind you
mind we, or as the second alien’s
first-and-last poet to the orbit earth’s
two thousand feet good mood of binder twine

…un-winding through this labyrinth of place from
...I hate space...that’s the female lead
climbing out her pond, end of the film Gravity
...this alien given ask...what’s paint got to do with it?

...or, when this little bit of sea
gets rough…
I’m done, by ‘eck will someone drop
call that pearl, the long and short worn

…toss of gone quite smooth
from love’s left hand let slip...and slips her muff
this one say told high chaperone, this ocean-holding
take-in-turns, this gape, this gone down lane that…

…has no memery? and yet depicts meanwhile
we fish collect in baskets upalong
up-through barnoon bar none, or downalong
in barns aloft, the sun in also risers runs too quick...

…and now the cat’s being sick
…or is it something that we ate
we try to feed without a plate
this poem that will not be put, or stay and…

always strays, or tries to climb right up your arm
or even we are saint, or
just don’t want it to
…long since neander mouthfuls, heamatite and blue.