something has been here before
and everything waits for it to come again
traces remain round sulky bends
velvet peat pissed rocks
built on echoes
shaped by deserting water
insect silent
a scut of earth
cut up and shut up
hills throw themselves at skies
that open and come down
it’s very simple
everything waits for it to come again
from Hole in the WallFind more by Tom Pickard at the library
Copyright © 2002 Tom Pickard
Used with the permission of Flood Editions.
when I no longer see you
may those who see you see you well
walking with a long view
by some swelling water or declining fell,
wearing, as you do now, a sleeveless blouse
your girlish shoulders, straight back,
once dark hair thinned and silvered
as the sky your bold eye scans
someday by a confluence of buried river
and submerged stream
not beached I hope nor lonely
remember days adrift in cloud
the scented meadows of our flesh
while walking city streets or wooded track
when bones compound or twist your back
let those who see you see you well
from Hole in the WallFind more by Tom Pickard at the library
Copyright © 2002 Tom Pickard
Used with the permission of Flood Editions.
you gave me a white rose
put the lamp on the stove
it caught fire
the I Ching said
thunder above the lake
lightning in Baker Street
switched on the cooker
and blew a fuse
blue flash
you see
the whole experience
is electric
from Hole in the WallFind more by Tom Pickard at the library
Copyright © 2002 Tom Pickard
Used with the permission of Flood Editions.
The swallows on the TV aerial
face west and watch
the fellsides undulate
like dunes in the dusk.
They gather on the telephone wire.
Yesterday, fifty.
Today more than double that.
Quick clouds skim purple
off the fells.
These are the facts
I’m faxing down my line.
Slow flying jets under
a low lying sky.
They fly south
over armies assembled in the dust,
appear on radar screens
the shape of cities,
and disperse
like grains of sand in a storm.
from Hole in the WallFind more by Tom Pickard at the library
Copyright © 2002 Tom Pickard
Used with the permission of Flood Editions.
there is something so familiar in what is said
I stop and listen,
a traveller’s monologue of dark moaning trees,
chopped waters,
deserted street corners,
randomly disturbed light,
raised curtains,
doors flung open,
sudden precipitous avenues,
far away dogs brought near
it is insistent
secures my inner ear
we pick up the old conversation
neither of us understands
from The Dark Months of MayFind more by Tom Pickard at the library
Copyright © 2004 Tom Pickard
Used with the permission of Flood Editions.
an embattled horizon
and a silk storm of subtle rain at the window
I thought was you
packed up and portable
I’m ready to run
I heard a gun at dawn
a fuckwind shot and screeching
what carries forward is love
—what a mover!
sleek hips and hanging loose
can I come over?
I kiss your punches, embrace your kicks
gan on, beg me to die for you
although your love turned toxic
my breath stops when you hurry past
to lock up the chickens, clutching a fag
from The Dark Months of MayFind more by Tom Pickard at the library
Copyright © 2004 Tom Pickard
Used with the permission of Flood Editions.
a breeze of rowan lifts
pale curtains of cloud
where hawks stake a claim
to a drifter’s sky
the lick of jigging water
over rock
takes thought with it
and every it it is
it
and us outside it
I outside us
and us it
inside of I
and out
or hung
tail slick as a pack of cards
scuffing gushes
over lush mist
that skulk cloughs
while swift streams
skim speech
from streets of the sea
from The Dark Months of MayFind more by Tom Pickard at the library
Copyright © 2004 Tom Pickard
Used with the permission of Flood Editions.
