GREEN MAGIC IN THE LIBRARY'S COUNTY RESERVE

the cover bares a strawberry goddess the whir of the fan the stir
of dry book-sweat the goddess with strawberry breasts shelves
on rails giant vice-jaws with book-spine teeth I have stepped

into the gap the fan's noise fades is insulated by books by
pages by words by letters by dates Green Magic published 1977
I was eight embraced by the heat of The Queen's Silver Jubilee

the goddess shields her eyes from the sun a long summer holiday
bliss hot the goddess gazes beyond us Standard Dictionary
of Folklore below this The Science in Science Fiction opposite

is Cookery for All either side of the goddess stand two nettle men
each grasping with nettle hands a nettle staff down by the stream
in '77 we made labyrinths in the nettles I read the frightening

fascinating The Cat in The Hat mum threatens to weigh us and
weigh us after the cover bares strawberry breasts pick your own
our red mouths reciting red words plucked from rows of green shelves





BELONGING

loss is laid out along hedges is stretched across five or more
fields loss is glinting on tiles the stream's sound is loss‚s comings
& goings only ways loss knows open a book where loss is written

pages are white spattered with black loss is not in letters a nor z but
in shapes between what will be said loss is sitting in the tree next
door it's black or red or white it's watching the girl cross the road

and also the boy with the knife in his pocket loss is laid out along
streets some cars feel shudders through old suspension bricks
in mother's pantry seep a soft white fluff of loss the mouthful

of loss you chew slowly is warm when it slides into your gut later
loss in the pan that you'll flush stinks of things food is not we
hold hands the sweat we mix is tainted the slipperiness of our

meeting in sex is the same slipperiness when we pull apart loss
is hung out to dry on a washing line is clean & white as ghosts
morning sun makes rise from puddles on roads or grasses in meadows

only silence at loss's very end is ready & full





CANAL CABALA

a long black box of water a water-clock each rise
of surface tension a tick each fall a tock a man‚s hand
on a tiller is tight knuckles white he guides his boat‚s

length in to a black long water box a water-black long
box a black-box length of water a rubbing bump against
slimy bricks a lock is pregnant with a mass of narrow-boat

a propeller makes & churns wet words for a drenched & old
indecipherable language a lock is oiled a narrow key
of a boat is in tumblers of froth begin to turn surplices

of water spouting into a lock white hankies of water white
frocks pouring water shifting tons of iron black white-tipped
magician's sticks of a lock-gate magpie wings white-

cuffed black arms of a policeman from a past vestment-
blacks dog-collar-whites white bowler hats of bollards black
shadows cast by white light beyond a lock water on another level





VOLTAGE

willow stitched into evening sky black veins
& fish jacket of dimensions woven living ink

complex dark hand on smooth blue skin
skin deep as every thing as very where owl call

expands droplets of dew my tongue runs round
my mouth feels slippery teeth & soft lip-skin

I feel in dark pink a cloud builds a white house
full of blackening dream & dazzling tendrils

willow's soft bending knives slicing coming night‚s
vast blue mind I run my tongue round my mouth

imagine my teeth & jawbone dry very thing my tongue
rotted gone gone long ago a smell from soil rises

coils its touch round my brain's naked tip rain trembles
unfallen my throat‚s bulb glows sound willow-lattice

entwined with world & where roots spook through ground
leaves shuffle laden air my red lattice of veins vibrates

up from feet to skull life jolts


© Mark Goodwin 2005