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The thing we’re shifting doesn’t fit in the space that waits for it it won’t go through the door or round the corners checking beforehand ought to warn us but it isn’t out by more than an eighth of an inch I always think that, at a pinch
things’ll squeeze in. It’s an original sin to believe that deal and chipboard are similar to wool, malleable they’re not, and I’ve ignored your words, you’ve got all the weight we’re struggling, trying to keep it straight.
Now there’s a spare chest of drawers on the landing, stranded, mine of course. We lie there back to back most of the night you sulking, me contrite leaving a draughty crack not quite an eighth of an inch, we touch and part, trying to flinch.
In the pub, old boys, moved in from the south perch, grey parrots, boasting, roosting, opposite, the smoke hoose (as they say up here) unwinds a scarf of kipper-scented grey into a black, travelling sky
We walk along the coastal path, past Bungalows, allotments, soon fields of cows slope to a cliff, sheer, curving round a shore of black whinstone and scoops of beach across the face hundreds of birds
kittiwakes, sit breast on breast cuddled on rock ledges, their guano, marking time, thickened to white lace, audience to the lift and lull of tides curtainfalls of cloud
April snow flurries the high hedges of whitethorn, merges with blossom, melts in our plastic cups of tea, falls on our sandwiches, forms crystals on his red hair then blows over
He scrambles through a patch of heather finds a spur of whin where breakers turn whirlpooling spouts of foam on him in his navy scarf and anorak he watches the kittiwakes fish
and I watch him – he capers near the edge leans over, flaps his wings, pretends to be a gull, a jagged cross beneath the old smooth wheel of birds, inapt as Cnut before the riff and buff of waves
Kittiwakes, wide-armed, screaming, drop in the sea’s open throat, held on a feather I climb over, pull him back, back to the pub where there are parrot stories, smoke and kippers people playing darts
We somme foglant an the starfoot clammt und sveltstrickt ins gnocchi nicht
Stilldeckt, fearboden velblakket all nem wan kans nils persicht
Oren bin oren drammet we slepfe nem wan kannot pensamme oft we nilgen usland sicht
Wendon, Lodblinken! Sonne rimmet felts ab clair bov blaugen sofar okean
Bretplumers flaum an doppled waterscuffs skimflighters brostle, ayn gint notheran strange flishen, como gigants, glimt and plaumet
Sen kepitin Fortuno (Lodreft bogfutch!) smileeven
Fargript, mundklept, lagenflotted we somme gamboltongues befor the wander of itt.
Note: Sailors on an early voyage of discovery to the new world speaking in a European patois Inspired by a workshop given by the late Ken Smith
The tide is going out on salt pastures sand has covered, the train a long brush-stroke removing itself.
He sits opposite another passenger a woman unwrapping sandwiches a faint flexing of lips reveals her English taste for lonely journeys
his thumbs fondle each other, retreat inside the cave of his palms he gazes out of the window, grey eyes reflecting exteriors:
what a coast! Absolutely flat, stick-limbed birds picking about could you understand why they strut float on waves, suddenly fly…
and the train, obvious old metaphor shunting, rattling to the terminus, had we not invented it ourselves wouldn’t God construct it for us?
She’s finishing her sandwiches putting the wrapper, scraps of crust tidily in her bag, brushing at crumbs if you could fathom a woman’s thoughts…
he needs to float words, find currents, So strange , the birds, he rasps, she smiles brows knotting, but polite, Birds? Ah, yes, the birds… aren’t they … It tells him nothing.
Both of them stare out – the sand is wet shines a moment as the sea recedes perhaps the tide is turning beginning to come in.
The train sings to itself, seems suspended in empty land running back; underneath, time gossips, chatters across the points.
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