last week he disappeared


           carving stubbled tracks


                
into familiar countryside


          throwing gold dust at the sun


               
and hours later found himself 


          a memory of what had grown


               
on strange roads sixty miles from home


          and stood through wind and rain


              
not knowing where he was, or why


          a distant Combine gathers grain

What if you stood 
quite still
right at the edge
feet firmly planted
about half a yard apart
breathing steady
the sun at your shoulder
then leaned out 
being careful not to fall
looked into the water
saw someone you half knew
looking back?
 

Pulling the string
releases rain
stored in long pods
to swell amethysts.

Imagine your mother somersaulting 
down cellar steps


seeing what looks like the shadow of a dove
from the corner of your eye


these things are unusual
they could unsettle a kid


so you ask her, ‘what the fuck was that?’


she tells you not to swear
says she was only dancing 

that she slipped and lost her bearings


and now your father has disappeared
without a puff of smoke


all night you dream of circuses

‘You’ve really come up in the world here
...the whole of London is yours on a plate.’


                             *


In the rotating glass restaurant
(one complete rotation every twenty-three minutes)
Dave is trying to catch the waiters eye. 
Sue is straightening the cutlery.


The menu is in French, which neither of them speak.
He chooses ‘Le Rumpsteak’ 
She selects ‘Les Scampi, Avec Frites.’
Their waiter is not French.


A modish  couple, who look a little like 
Peter Wyngarde and Nyree-Dawn Porter
spill out of the ladies’ room, clothes slightly askew
giggling, wiping sugar off their faces.


Nyree-Dawn still has her hat on. 
A beautiful wine-red, broad-brimmed felt fedora
with a patterned silk scarf around the crown.
A really special kind of hat, a one-off. 


A hat that screams ‘class’.

You hear about these things
at a distance
down long chains.


             *


The motorcycle boys
The bush beaters
The unlucky three 
(call them what you will)
left school at sixteen.
Within a year or maybe two
there was an incident
an accident, an RTA
where Andy died.
Ram, with shattered legs
or fractured spine was fixed 
with expensive plates and pins.
Jez escaped unhurt or 
with only minor injuries
or wasn’t there at all.

An outdoor bath with wood-fired copper boiler.
An African hut with charcoal-powered cooler.
A renovated rare-bat-friendly belfry.
A 50s soft-porn stereoscopic what-the-butler-saw.
A well used long-wheelbase Landrover Defender.
A Dartmoor clotted cream ice-cream.
A furlong of interesting and quite interesting  books.
An old stuffed-head of a slightly puzzled antelope.
A battered pair of crepe-soled bhundu-boots, size 6.
A slow-cooked meal in the classic French style.
An early-to-bed slightly-inebriated smile.

‘I am heavy. I walk like a giant. 
Or maybe a great ape.’


Dave delivers this deadpan.
As matter of fact as Max Wall. 


He knows all about 
neurotransmitters
their gaps and imbalances
stutterings and surges.


He understands the mechanics of synapses.
Why his fine-motor skills 
aren’t so fine anymore.
Why his vision these days is ‘iffy at best.’


He’s fully aware of his bargain with lithium.


‘I know what’s happening
I know my chemistry’


Most people don’t know that 
as well as ‘bipolar’
Dave has an MSc.

Geoff Cochrane. New Zealand poet. Formidably concise. Witty and wild. Give him a go maybe?

If you’re out there writing, may it go well.

They say that, once fledged
young swifts will not land.


Airborne for two years
they sleep among the stars


alternately switching off 
separate halves of their brain


enough to find some rest 
yet always half-aware.


That’s nothing.
I did this for a decade


grew sabred wings
reached dizzying heights


crossed continents at will
covered half the globe.


Each day I held the sky inside.


At night I flew by dreaming.