CORNWALL DOOR

the white house on the clifftop
made of seagull
black-roof beak
glint-glass eyes
curled seagull coiling
into a square-white self-nest

the garden's wind-bent hawthorn
stood against sky
is the colour of crow-call

bloom-splintered grass slopes
to bulk-columns of granite
green-bearded
thrift is dark-pink as kiss
some seduction moves stems

the cling-curl footpath
far above the hollow-solid
of spark-coated clear blue
is thin as string

my footprints are knots
the sound of my footfalls
is small Cornwalls

some about-to-happen is unseen
on the horizon's watery hinge

honeysuckle-perfume wraps
my brain in sweet foil
the scent of sun-pressed saps
is gentle laser
engraving my cells

out over the bay
white-house fragments soar
& careen
such free white bits of strange-home
afloat on air's bright weight

with screeches
that pull

me apart peacefully





LEWIS

I.

Lewis is
a puzzle
of peat
& igneous
words

skys eag round

interlock
blur

bare
utterances
of moor roll
away

to bruised
hill

-outlines layered

over each
other receding
to faint &
fainter

echo


II.

Lewis stains
my mouth
with colours
a peat-cutter's
hands touch

as I try
sounds
of ground
-shapes

but noise

too dark
& fibrous

grows
over

my tongue


III.

at Callanish
I walk into a mouth
centred by

a tall tongue

teeth
stand around me

I cannot digest
this island's stripes

layers
dark & light locked
into stones

this mouth's sound
is silent in mine


IV.

so heather's
wire text
scrubbing
my puzzler's boots

is indisting
-uishable from smooth

cool mist of gone

condensing
a voice's moisture

on my illiterate
skin





ONE SEASON TO ANOTHER

Louis in his sandpit

briefly he lifts
his head from his play
his dark eyes stare
into sky

it's september    
the sky is blue
a deeper blue
than summer's

leaves have
separate tones

the mown
lawn is individual    lit
green blades    not washed
to one plane
by july's high light

september light carries
a warm angular dark       

light begins
to glance
a world    as this change

creeps across
earth's surface
and through our air

slow changes
for a moment
are permanent

on Louis' olive skin
each sand crystal
is clear

his hair is fine
bright strands
tight curls
at his nape    growing    each

defined by shine
& shadow

Louis turns    smiling
he stares
into my eyes





OWN WORDS

I take a paper of outstretched   
hand    my daughter's    I may crumple

but gently    or interlock
ink of my older fingers with

absorbing fibres of hers    hold     hand

is a word    is her hand a word ?    her

face is a said
    a say!    yet it's there
& here   and can be    beyond &

without my gaze    without
my throat's noise of her name    she

is there/here in a sound :    Tess   
yet
outside letters    my daughter grows

she's 6 years of of-world    she can spell
many parts of    world
   ink

of her writes-onto    writes-into
rites-through    papers of my bones


            © Mark Goodwin 2004