wrap the house around you, then                            leave it.   out into the only world you know.   anxiety  comes with           the unfamiliar.                                         they call down the chimney.

so i will go back.   look at the buildings. two museums hiding,.               look at the buildings,

this is a mill town.

are you afraid?

did you

wonder why some of us come private?

maybe a result of intrusion

finding letters opened or not finding them at all

until too late

that is why i am afraid

finding these memories difficult
to relate

may abstain in despair

to say it all caused great harm

really

as did your request for him to hit me for wearing old trousers

that is why i am afraid

yes it is slate
tipped over from higher up

the quarry is closed this side
subsidence

the other side it is still worked
though further than before
as there is now a visitor
attraction

for tourists
so we don’t go there
anymore

is that feeling that comes of an autumn afternoon at a particular moment just before the squirrel arrives timely

for food

that feeling that arrives with the name of the county

the memory of your home and closeted life
now eroding slowly

that sense of belonging to the land

it is that feeling

…that

they say my brother
would walk to Sherry’s
for the stales with a pillow

case to carry they say

he never ate none on
the way home and i

wonder if that is true

later years gran would
take me in the shop
to buy fresh

she favoured the cream horns.

we listen to the rain early

with mixed feelings

there may not be gardening done today

there may be drawings

my beetle, dead, not buried. i keep them, yet it fell to the floor, mysteriously lost. we try to turn disasters round, here, knowing it will be found, some time. my dear sweet sexton, the burying kind.

i learn about sub soil, all things growing,

the logistics of death.

just stand and watch the season change, note the dew and separate ideas.   remember that you stand alone. are not alone from                                                  criticism and contradiction.

beetles here turn over, legs waving, we turn them back, then, it is all repeated.    empathy kicks in for all small folk who suffer,                                                    who cry in dark corners.

yet i have mislaid  the black beetle too.

it was some time ago we lost.the sexton.

that feeling, that .

arrives unexpected from darkness, some winters’ mornings,

opening the door to the sound of one black bran bird calling.

track four repeated. that

comes on waking finding peace and comfort bound in clean
linen.

arises with perfume, an uncertain memory.

it may be chemicals, peptides in the brain as love, what
ever the germ or warfare

I find no word to describe, no random feather nor dust on
my plate. pass a finger.

that feeling of trimmed nails upon the keys pounding
words and silences.

while music plays. that feeling. that.

syrup stings my tongue.

she said she liked the stories

except I did not tell them

i never tell you much

nor all of it

there are bits left to fill in

yourselves

make some thing of the scratches and nibs,

home in on detail

and begin

to enjoy

the cuts and scrapings.

days come darker still

considering the night

white they peer

sadly into empathy

faces cloud

shoulders bowed