Cacti
Dactylopius Coccus/Coccus Cacti
nicks
little carmine feathers
as we press
an impossible Europe
scaled
cactus brinks
to kiss
impossible staves—
little carmine-feathered sunsets
Madder #1
Rubia Tinctorum L
I drank juice – tart – from your
cup among the weeds, beside
the gray river, beneath the
burned oak | beyond: the fence
where grew our rutting pink
love—dried, ground and baked to brick.
See the beetle when it
crosses our feet –
hooked together
as if nailed, each
ankle a beam to the other, once
wound and wet and dyeing –
our low, broad sky reddens;
your arms splayed, fingers
gripping the roots that madden
the raw flesh beneath your nails—
I wish I'd caught and juiced your pink heart
before the ashes of your last
loves dried, ground and baked it
to brick in a mould of a heart, yet
still a heart.
Cockcrow after Bonfire
Then under sun I was flash
among tin black stumps of corn
and fired wing-tip
too charred for rat
captured in ash the crow
and its crown past flame or flâneur
Then under sun I was flash flame
over tin sun under ash sans cock crow
crowned as thorn flush
against the cold brow
sans sun flash over stump-corn
and charred tin over ash
Then in the sun I was flash
against the fire flush and lucked-
out over ash
beside the cold stream
I was spit and spittle was my name
rust and old tin craving meat.
Leaves
Tongues in the process
of rolling, forked
tongues, cranes
in the process
of folding, beyond
the season
of old men rustling
their broadsheets,
beyond, even
the process of two
folding a napkin
like a bedspread, curling
their hands, folding
their features
to the season,
rolling their seasons
into volumes, folding
their volumes into cranes.
eo! eo! The joy—
autumn—
folds.
Aubade
I have fastened a golden hinge
fixed with copper screws
to mend your fire-door,
for your door, Janus.
Who are we at war with
that we must be so direct?
Bionote
Editor of Projected Letters, I write under the pen name William Coldicott to avoid the Winnie the Pooh connotations.
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