PASSING STRANGERS

There is this hollow with trees underlit
by the canal reflecting.

And past me on the towpath comes a woman
in embroidered flares, all sunburn
and buttocks
and velvet hat,
and she swings
and sways
and flaps her hands
and treads a line
like a catwalk model with an appetite,
and nobody to please except herself
and her reflection
and me. Astonished.

Who cares where she is going
and why
and whom to meet
and the appointed time?

DESCENDING

Pantomime trees drift past each other,
Dwellings stacked up the valley’s north side.

There are no shadows in the noon sun flattening roofs,
Starbursting from a window, immunising me against reason.

I swing one leg past the other down this friendly pavement.
Can you hear the scuffing of my jeans?

BOSSA

Yesterday's waterfall was paradiddles on peat,
Soggy backbeat.

Today is raining fit to flood. The moors are

Storing enough to release another rhythm.

Perhaps tomorrow will play bossa nova,
That I would die for.

Waves are spinning this prison bubble that I'm in
But all that stops me drowning is it's liquid skin
I anguish to be breezed away and realise my dreams
Before this current one more time a nowhere
Whirlpool seems