Smile

The soul’s reason
a smile after sickness,

light dropped
by glow-worms

stretching after stars.

Sickness smiles, then,
half-willingly,

half by system
and the other

whirling for joy.

This is the system
for reasoning,

light at an end
through looking-glass

the reason it displays.

A prayer
of the human species,

a force of the gust,
kissing itself in

tales of continuance.

#15

#14

#13

pen-place

fretted on
my ears

hum / haw
tick / tock
haw / hum
tock / tick

humming
hawing
ticking
tocking

tocking
ticking
hawing
humming

my ears
fretted by

ticking of
the hawing

tocking of
the humming

wrote it down
wrote
it
down

an effort
to recollect

modification
of ideas

in the
pen-place ear

#12

The Review by Martin Stannard – Knives Forks and Spoons Press
Here
The No Breath by John Goodby – The Red Ceilings Press
Here
Museum of Lost and Broken Things by Lauren Terry – Leafe Press
Here
A Confusion of Marys by Rupert M Loydell and Sarah Cave – Shearsman Books
Here
Operations of Water by Ian Seed – Knives Forks and Spoons Press
Here
The Underground Cabaret by Ian Seed – Shearsman Books
Here

Further reviews, elsewhere:
How To Grow Your Own Poems, Kate Clanchy (221pp, £14.99, Picador) – at Stride
Here
Centenary Selected Poems, Edwin Morgan (288pp, £14.99, Carcanet) – at Stride
Here
A New Silence, Joseph Massey (151pp, £10.95, Shearsman) – at Stride Here

My publications:
Aeons of Upheaval – Trainwreck Press
Here
And I Used to Sail Barges – The Red Ceilings Press
Here; and a brief review here

My self-published work:
Self-Isolation (with Rupert Loydell)
Here
a poet animate in anima poetæ
Here
The Aaron Islands Part II Erased
Here

#11 – further from this collection of found poems

#10

#9

#7

#6