Liam Wilkinson.com: Micropoems

I
rehearse

my
mistakes

to
perfection

::

through
thin
curtains

wild
cherry

undressing

::

how
true

these
lies

have
become

::

youth's
a

spent
page

of
doodles

::

my
inquisitive
desk-lamp

sniffs
the
page

::

time

is
sunlight

on
my
memory

::

any minute

the machinery of today
could suddenly stop
I grease the cogs
with small pleasures

::

there's no painting this moment
in pretty watercolours
anything less
than a chisel and stone
won't cut it

::

I wake
inside a box
of silence
the night around me
torn to rags

::

the night is young
the wine is old
and
for a moment
I'm ageless

::

Scarborough
puts on her glaucous coat
we watch
as a new dawn
spits on the beach

::

the gentle fingers
of your voice
unravel the chaos
of worries
in my head

::

all
this time
it’s been the
you
in my life

::

keen to fill an empty day
I find myself
once again drawn
to the museum
of my own memory

::

nobody told me
that before
finding yourself
you have to
lose yourself completely

::

stepping hesitantly
into the old house
you say you know this place
like the back
of your father’s hand

::

raising my failings
in a wind
I let them
ripple and rag
for all to see

::

the beguiling dance
of incense smoke
I often wish I could
reach and rise
and disappear

::

the rain falls
like Buster Keaton
and wears
the same
expression

::

because it’s all I know
I search every string
for a melody
to describe
how sorry I am

::

we're all waiters
and waitresses
attending
to the table
of some other place to be

::

an evening stroll
at the edge of the sea
I toss the stones
I never knew
I’d been carrying

::

halfway round the supermarket
I realise
all my attempts
at getting lost
end in destinations

::

she always
has them
those answers
to questions
I never ask

::

swirling moon
in the crown glass window
I ask the barman
to distort
the remaining night

::

sails thinned to wisps
loll over
a splintered deck
all my big adventures
moored in the harbour

::

your quietness
is a sculpture
a stillness
draped
in marble garments

::

two pebbles
suddenly
locked together
a little monument
to now

::

FOR YOU, BILL EVANS (Sequence)

night rolls out
like a blue-black carpet
on which I walk,
feet bare,
soul stark naked

this is my poem
for you, Bill Evans—
the nights we’ve shared,
the tea leaves
we’ve swept away!

a whistle in my nose—
no John Coltrane,
but certainly
experimental
(Ornette Coleman?)

my tea’s gone cold
as sudden as
the house at midnight,
when the last of the life
has trickled out of it

one last James Schuyler
poem before I put
the day out, like the cat
I love so much
but no longer live with

::

OFFICE POEM (Sequence)

little office, dressed
in depressed blue—
the gagged blasphemies
of my boss
through the wall

machine-gut coffee
in a plastic cup
keeps me conscious—
I never miss a beat
of this boredom

I hate the trees
for just standing there—
the restlessnes
of my feet
beneath the desk

day in
day out
all I have are these
glass diamonds
of freedom

::

HOLBECK HILL (Sequence)

In June 1993, the Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, was demolished when the cliff gave way and slipped into the North Sea. Fifteen years on, parts of the Yorkshire Coast continue to erode, along with homes, hotels and a long history of seaside memories.

another year,
another lump of coast
lost to the sea—
our memories
retreat

on Holbeck Hill,
puddles
of our time here
ripple in the dint
of a landslide

sandcastles,
long since swept away—
a stuttered line
of ruins
along the shore

saltwater slaps
the riprap—
this huddle of stones
surrounding
our sorrow

the space between
now and then
widens—
another crack
creeps up the wall

the ins and outs
of the tide.
the fizzing of froth
in a cowrie.
we are still here

our discovery—
that preserved
chapter, written
in the lines
of the cliff face

after the rain,
exposed in porridge-earth,
the day we met—
pocketting
that plundered fossil

::

GRIMSHAW (from The Darkening Tide)

I

I make a square
of fingers and thumbs -
nothing in this frame
has changed
since you were here

II

by the Grand Hotel
a silhouette
against a sliver
of moon on sea -
the shadow of me

III

your moons still glow
inside the gallery -
in the middle of these days
at least I have
your nights

::

Meditating—
she puts her phone
on vibrate.

::

That far away look
in your eyes—
I phone for a cab.

::

“Have you any idea
who I am?”
I ask myself.

::

Night sky--
I make a wish
on a helicopter.

::

Lunchtime--
the ATM
eats my card.

::

Storming out again...
in his suitcase
two smaller suitcases.