markbousfield

THE ASSEMBLIST
UNdistinguished and ample
the bursting Japanese gardens

walked a corn-threaded sandal
tremor of surprise,

finger-shlocked and primmy,
warm like wine to soothed lips,

smoothed and re-imbued
a thousand words from a thousand people

lost in the rosaries
and grey salves hanging around his neck,

the collector,
the assemblist.

RENDEZVOUS

The American road movie
flat tarmac pulls away into the distance
laying in wait for the racers to arrive,
for the dark plumes of passing night
and from the shadows the mercy serpent's warming bite,

in foot fells and foot nooks
winded through Wynter
the kettle children of the Trossachs
fettle in fondness,

in the malts of growing affection
the last to catch a bullet of gin
is the first foundation of dawn,

burial suit pocket's hem firmly sewn in
as the blackened landscape changed
to the baking skins of fluorescent sunkill
and the palms of the psalm brigade
driving like Sunday weather released into
echoed overspill.