hot-house eyes of the driver,
tributaries branching across the aisle.
Eyes, leaves, cheek bones,
a spider’s web tattoo around a neck,
the Tom Jones Sex Bomb ring tone,
I feel them enter the vibrating web.
A green patina spreads like memory
across my skin. ‘Sorry
you must say sorry, you catch this lady
with your twig...’ I scream
below some imperceptible threshold
as if anchored in the canal,
not yet born, in another tense or field,
carrying a tree on the bus to Low Edges.
The lake is drowning in concrete,
the forest goes by so quickly,
has someone thrown a switch. ‘Sorry
you must say sorry and do up your zip –
you embarrass the bus.’
Who is taking whom to where.
I am not on a journey: I am the journey.

*

Passengers google i-Phones ...
Does Botox hurt... How tall
is John Travolta... Dangers
of woodworm in windmill restoration ...
I shed a nut, a nose grows longer,
wrinkles crawl from face
to face, I can’t dissociate
bark and skin, tense
and pronoun, leaf
and hair. They name me Sylvatica, one
who returns like Persephone.
Who wouldn’t be a tree again.
I migrate across the shadow grey
of the white roof-line
above vociferous trumpets,
hardy perennials, a gardenia from Basra.
Dark-green surges, my heart pumping
sap. There is this person inside of me.
I think I could lose him in traffic.

*

In the 80’s, it was five pence
per journey, tree or no tree.
Have you heard of the Hoochie Pincohie,
where I dip my ankle
and campgrounds worship
on the grass of my shadow,
a cleansing, resin-scented, canopy
edible before the storm
becomes the storm. What will the ice-core,
bone-scan, depth-sound, updates
of the committee tell us. ‘Excuse me,
is that the bible you’re reading?’
‘No!’
‘What is it?’
‘Not the bible’
‘Sorry... it’s my turn to say sorry...
I’ve annoyed myself since I was twelve...
My mother took me to school.’

*

A woman’s laughter weeps,
her bulldog panting clouds,
her man shambling down the aisle
like a stoned llama with three legs.
They know we’re out of time.
They can’t help it. Can they help it.
Where is the woman who sings
What a friend we have in Jesus.
‘Come now you can sing it with me.’

*

Is to move like a cloud of birds,
the blue of the sea, a tree on the bus,
elegy or prophecy... Burger Buzz,
derma flow, Beds and Mattresses
where the Vietnamese Cafe meets
Mother Hubbard’s new chippy,
Airy Fairy... Tea With Percie...
as if names sing life in and out of places,
turn a butcher’s into a nursery garden,
carry a tree on the bus to Low Edges.


*

A flashbulb sun publishes offshoots
on foreheads, a gleaming bald head,
a narrative gap in the teeth, figures
tightly wrapped, involutions
edged crimson and pink,
a leopard print headscarf, blur
of pigeon, glimpse
of the gilded golden taxi cab
on the roof of Mr Compensator.
Even the context is out of context.
I shed a nut. Where is the man who
speaks into his dud i-Phone
about daring heists, running the wing.
The chassis rattles and shudders,
the engine snores. No.
It’s me shuddering,
it’s the driver snoring.
Where are the velvet curtains,
the usherette with ices,
we need an intermission.
Is ‘love’ the destination... Lidl...
... the lake of fractured bone ...
the queue for the checkout till,
voting booth or open mic.
Where’s the woman who sings ‘Strange Fruit’
to the lower deck.
‘Come now you can sing it with me.’

*

I am moved but feel I’m standing still.
This would be a good time to take root,
climb my rung-less ladder
abolish the horseless milk float
refurbish the shipwrecked bus fleet.
Don’t take my word for it,
look at the skips in the street.
Press this bell and the bus will slow.
Small ones know their dinosaurs, you know.
They say it all the time... ‘You know’
What is it they know.

*

City ambassadors with the blood of peacocks,
football fans chanting ‘You’re just a man
with a jacket’ to a man in a jacket
on the door of the Globe along the city gateway,
a hopping wagtail’s epic passage.
Will you carry me if I carry you.
The sea and the desert are mine,
the hawk’s banner and the rain’s guitar are mine.
I am and am not mine.
Where’s the woman who sings ‘I put a spell on you’
to the lower deck.
All the roads are knotting up,
eyes and leaves detach like tears.
Am I bleeding or sweating
are they singing or screaming.
A man wired as a hive of diligent bees,
shouts, ‘Twenty-first century people are stupid.’
A full-headed Dahlia puts on her eyes.
Is the future listening like the dead.
I can touch its grief.
Licking flares on the horizon,
drowning water-tanks and wells.
Here, shadows stoop like question marks
at petrol pumps, move
as if moments, days, are in them,
looking for direction... alibi, metaphor.
Why tea lights are so called?
How to style curtain bangs?
Will there be islands.
The horizon is dissolving.
Will the sky be visible from Low Edges,
the weather is their religion. Look...
two young ravens take it in turn to cross-body lead
in a gateless field.
What is coming.
Will you be there.
They can’t hear me.
Can they hear me.
Are you their other image.
A wild boar squeezes brown sauce on a pork pie
in a window seat. Will there be outposts on stars
that resemble Great Egrets in breeding plumage.
I can no longer see the Three Witches.
Magic words vibrate the spider’s web, string
by string, ‘Sometimes I go dizzy, see black spots ...
you’ve got to laugh.’
‘Why?’	

*

They know I’m in here.
Do they occupy, trespass, prosecute ...
sentence.
When I move I’m target light.
They’re teaching me manners today.
How to say sorry.