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
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