in and out

the Avebury stones

can’t seem to get

a signal …

brown corduroy shirt
and dark redwine tie

                finding Virginia
                                              young before gathered and drapèd hair
                                              over enquiring philtrum
                old where sternomastoids meet
                below the whole larynx readying to write properly
                                              and hooded eyes half closed to stolidity
                                                              half open to breath

–~~~ “A” ~~~–

I’ve lost the needle that settles
between grooves and plays the circling music

on fluff the arm skates across the ridges
making awful rip of a career

it skints along a ridge edge – wedges in,
bounces out – a scratch to repeat

against all reasonable hope that it might not;
I cannot hear the pops and crackles,

the greeting space before the
opening strain, awaiting nudity

–~~~ “A” ~~~–

                                                              April clouds are stone
                                              foreboding over the countryside
                                                                                   placed in circles across the land
                                                                                              over millennia

I had wanted
to follow thought and view

at right-angle
to all the world

to find it beautiful
in all its stark

to lose my weight
in perfect shifting breeze

but had to work
and plan the bend

and case the sight
and lost my sight

(and gained some weight)
I … had to work

–~~~ “A” ~~~–

                                              Virginia wanted
                                to dispense with tale-tell-all
                rough-carved and ugly in ungainly moves
                                across the cornered chessboard

                                              but what
                                of the train of thought she thought
                as more essential than denouement
                                and in and in she went

–~~~ “A” ~~~–

                                there was
                                just out
                                and hunt
                                and gather

                                and then
                                we stopped
                                to keep
                                and found

the whole world wider than the sky

                                that we
                                got lost
                                to where
                                we were

                                and time
                                which came
                                to late
                                and so we

                                hauled
                                the stones
                                to fix
                                place

                                and dis
                                covered
                                in …
                                and life

                                and death
                                the smell of
                                deepness
                                the breath

                                of stone
                “you know what they were talking about
                                in class …
                                Kirsty …”

                                scampering
                                sideways
                                down the
                                slope untied

                                hair waving
                                all over
                                the place
                “… they were talking about barrows, burial

                                chambers;
                                we’re standing
                                on them
                                now – ”

                                all over
                                the place;
                                I’ve come
                                from the

                                ground I’ll
                                go back to
                                the ground
                                when time

–~~~ “A” ~~~–

Salisbury Cathedral

angels fizz and jagger touch
a single flame of tongue

the oldest working clock
shows no time anymore;

so much empty stone
so many lives lost

only coloured light of lineage
and majesty keeping inward –

so much hopeful effort frozen
in faraway stare outwards –

curlicue ends of stone form
perfect circles of nothing

suspended in everything

–~~~ “A” ~~~–