Funeral Sentences

You stupid bastard!—is it

ok to say that now? After the

platitudes of your obsequies?

May I rail at you like I did by that

crossroads, ticking you off for being

uncommunicative? Well, you aren’t being

much better now, are you? And

who knew you had such

bad taste in music? Who knew you

sat in this old church and wept?

Who knew you had so many friends

except those who knew you.

Tumulus

Love is a great tumulus,

at its heart buried the

moment of meeting, the

first fire, perhaps sulphurous,

perhaps a fizzle that needed

breath to make it catch, perhaps now

just charcoal and dust, but

still surrounded by

life’s offerings.

On the Beach

I

The patterns of the draining sand look

just like the paving of my garden a

few million years ago.

ii

French mothers no longer wear well

–what happened?—while their

nubile daughters blow about the beach like

fragments of a shattered

warning sign.

III

Brown is the new beige, all those

factors factored out in the

vitaminising Sun.

iV

I am lost on this beach,

Friday’s footprints buried beneath

Saturday’s stampede.

V

Nevertheless, I will always return

like the waves, always the same,

like the waves, always different,

like the waves, always inexplicable.

Artificial Fire

The street is like a stage-set,

waiting for people, cars, a cat even

waiting for someone to shout

“Action!”.