THE DREAMER, THE SLEEP

Here am I, lying lacklustre in an unmade bed

A Sunday in December while all Leeds lies in around me

In the silent streets, frost on roof slates, gas fires

And kettles whistle as I read Bonnefoy on the eternal.

Too tired to fantasize, unsummoned images float by,

Feebly I snatch at them to comply with the muse’s dictum: write.

The streets of fifties summers, kali from the corner shop,

Sherbet lemons and ice pops, the voice of Margaret at ten,

What times will have done to you, what men

Used and abused you?

Solitary but not alone I read Lacan on desire

It is not a day I can visit the ward

Overcome by delusion’s shadow.

WITHOUT THE WHEREWITHALL

To Thushari Williams

Dear Thushie, the six months you spent with us

Will never be forgotten, the long days you laboured

In the care home, your care-worn comings home

To sit with Brenda Williams, poète maudit sang pur,

Labouring together to bring to light poems buried alive

And turn them into a book, the living text

Proof enough of your divine gift as muse

And enchantress of both word and screen.

Now in far Indonesia you strive to strike a bargain

With an uncaring world, webmaster with magic fingertips

You engrave the words of us, careworn poets of our age,

In blue and scarlet on a canvas alabaster page.

Simulacrum more real than reality itself,

Should reality exist in cyberspace.

My Prévert, my Nerval, I never thought to see

So handsomely orthographed, like Li Po scrolled

In Chinese water by a blue pagoda.

Indeed if anyone could write in troubled water

It would be you, my dearest daughter.

Whether this world will grant you a living

Only time’s indifference and your subtle craft will tell,

Artists like poets live on other’s bounty, as you know so well.

TO LEEDS BIG ISSUE SELLERS