Over the Surface

The creature shakes festering water
all over the art house

Carved equine harmony ruins
now
fit for the knackers yard

Skin too smooth
no flex or muscle movement

The jewels were all gone
its eyes removed

Cool handed double breasted veneer
raking coals over breaking ice

left outside

in the rain

the clumps of bedraggled hair followed
such license

her eyes fell upon
the moving rocks below

the sense of progress
denied by the masses

teeth keep distance
wires restrict movement

as it falls

the boat loosens its moorings
the light dances wild fire ice
the wall eats what the pigeons leave

the creatures cleave the carcass
claw at the sinews until bones are
carved
clasp at the cleavage
each finger bending

slow heat rising
from a decaying
regard

the sequence of raindrops

effortlessly tumbling as if from a higher reason
falling rather than moving
if there is a difference
it is the tumbling and turning
the electric pathways coalesce
combine to form walkways
paths through another memory

long dust falls along paths
laid by little plans
coming undone as the woman
returns the wine as this one was the wrong
shade of red

for the summer light
the red she wanted was somewhere between
blood and strawberries

the willingness she had to absorb
them the effortless way in which she connived
to connect humble beginnings to the end of time

under the rain

Oh the summer winds are clearing the winter miasma of sullen sky, teardrops escape from the vacuum laden vacancy and below the minions of tested fate, they scurry into their threatened homes

The Dark Dream

The sun rose above our heads
giving me moments to absorb its ointment
and notice your gentle breath coaxing teasing
and tugging the wandering flock of clouds now
distant as the tremble under your eyelid
settles me
to a peace
unknown in my war-torn dream-life
away from
home


- Nicholas Alexander
- 19 June 1992

The Cray

Barbs rooted in fray
thrashing for the very life
every last breath excerpted

despite aching muscles
old eyes bruises and
the ebbing tides urgent uncertainty

those finals strains
on its working flesh
most severe
demise by freedom

its final reach
brief as the open
mouth of tidal surge
form corrupted by jostling neigbours
fractured exoskeleton safety
set aside

relink the chain
mouths hang open

The Girl in the Frame (revised)

Innocent stranger,
Indeed, you bloom around gills and fall
beneath the radar under a sky dripping with
illusion

the woman rocks her child to sleep
and a scarf drifts over the rubble of her features
her torn up life the ruins she now lives in
walls crumble as pepper dust drying out

the wheels grind away
the teeth she was left with
she invites her friends
in public but the chairs were
burnt by the soldiers for firewood

the night she lost her roof
the planes fly overhead
louder than before
the rain on mother's big bed
and the lines down the walls
where the water runs

she lives thus in the public mind
takes dogs out for walks
leads them out of the trap
and into the summer

the illusion kept her between
four lines guarding the
boundary of her thought
the gates of reason
closed until the return
of the florists and the bell ringer