Empty Promise

Strange to say, but as the snow
falls your nosebleed is like
a punctuation, something else
we can remark upon, something

other than this relentless cold,
our sparse Siberian spring. Harsh
economics brings with it
other extremes; people

who must choose between
eating or heating well into
April’s empty promises.
Some of them I know,

not the tragic ones who stare
at me from television screens,
directors tugging the stretched
strings of my heart. No – these

are stalwarts and forgotten
heroes, men and women
who have given their lives
once and don’t complain while

they slowly freeze or starve
in little houses, not so far
from me. Now they give up
on living so cold hearts

can balance their books.
But we fixed your nose, it was
easy in the end, though who
fixes this town and this world, is

anyone’s guess

Poem: Birthday

Hope arrives at January’s
close, whether in presages
of spring or several feet of
snow. Right now with snowdrops
peeping, the increasing length
of day, it’s all palpable
at last. Then you call me your
rock – I’m very far from being that,
a mere
step, a name on some
useless bifurcation. Outside
it is twelve degrees; bring on
the west wind and
hope of spring

Poem: Blindfolds

There is no crisis
that’s never been made, no war
we’ve ever had to join. Why
don’t you stop! – look

at what you’re doing? Don’t
accept it,
turn off the TV and ignore
the paper headlines stacked

in front of you, they lead you into their
traps,
their pigeon-holes.
What are you? Can a jackass

stare back from the mirror? Even
gods call you sheep, creatures who
need to be brought in – whoever said
this

should be so? The more I say no, each
time you refuse to
toe the line, so much sooner
you and I become us

and then we

I am not a pacifist, but most conflict is avoidable.

Solstice

I stood alone
with you,
like it was the end of our world, an
eerie glowing sky reflecting my heart, with
the solstice on its way. You
turned to look at me, that smile
I knew so well, your gracious nod
I’d never seen in real life. My hand
went through you – you were not
there anymore, just an echo like the
sonorous bells over pantiles, made
uniform by the morning rime. You said
I looked ‘frit!’ in the dialect
brought across to your city,
the voice of your
distinction. ‘Your life is not
your own,’ you said, ‘even the sun
never stands still, only seems to.’
So you told me not to worry, not
even care, to let it all go
now, that it’s better to die trying
than do nothing,
a short life
with meaning and all its
tortuous crosses borne, can become
a pilot light of inspiration. You
walked towards the sea, smiling
once more and unafraid, before vanishing
out of time into the
low glinting sun, a promise
of far off warmth
and the revelation to come

Maverick

At what point do you realise you’re
not alive? I’ve watched
pedestrian slow to
moribund, the colour
drain away like a leaching wound. Life
without verve is no life at all
and my verve shot away years ago. He left
on this tangental course, a maverick
fired like some devil who may care. Oh,
he’s fine by the way and living it up
in a lush valley somewhere, high
on peyote and painting the tall
arid peaks where
the air is clear and the milky way
whispers sweet nothings
in his ear, the shining girl who
once curved my night sky

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