The Anger

Unlock, unlock!

So long a silence

needs shouting

and latches smashed

and the damned hinges broken

and then in ceremonial

of open air, the wine

poured out, the hands

empty: and slowly,

grave, straight, smiling,

to step across the threshold.

Unlock, set open,

set free, the exile

waiting in long anger

outside my home.

The Child on the Shore

Wind, wind, give me back my feather

Sea, sea, give me back my ring

Death, death, give me back my mother

So that she can hear me sing.

Song, song, go and tell my daughter

Tell her that I wear the ring

Say I fly upon the feather

Fallen from the falcon’s wing.

Footnote

I have not only falcons

in the family, and towers

on golden hills, but also

crabs: on the loud flat shore

under black cliffs, crabs

prancing in the shadow

of fierce, stranded seaweed.

And there are lots of bats

in my inheritance; the flittermouse

cracks the cup of twilight by the house

of owls and grey acacias, writes

my name in the Almanach

de Gotha: Ostrogotha.

And the moth

is a kind of cousin, and some nights

of autumn, rain is my elder brother.

Hard Words

Hard words

lockerbones

this is sour ground

dust to ashes

sounds soft

hard in the mouth

as stones

as teeth

Earth speaks birds

airbones

diphthongs

For Katya

You know, love you know, love

you aren’t the only one that ever

They always shut us up in towers

ever since once upon a

So we learn alone there

arts of unlocking

Till the old terrors

shed wolfskin and stand brothers

by the alder lake at the edge of April

and the waiting’s over

Links to MP3 Files:

• The Anger
• The Child on the Shore
• Footnote
• Hard Words
• For Katya