Notes for a poem set in Gostrey Meadow

I tease one of my wife's long blonde hairs from my urethra.
Litotes, they are not scarce, but abound in the owls' nests.
Outside of my tradition, in the caesura era,
I mistook a woman's forearms for elongated breasts,
And the sleeves at her elbows for a neckline, as she sat
On the opposite bank; but I observed discreetly, while
Crossing the bridge to get to these public toilets, how that
Upper section of flesh was hesitantly prehensile,
That she was simply resting elbows on her knees, chin on her
Hands. Not wishing to objectify her, or yield ribald
To postmodernism, this, in the caesura era,
Was how it was; fishermen fished, though nothing nibbled
Once my kids started throwing a ball into the water;
As I left, my dog, shaking, was making my family
Wet on the far bank, while the woman's husband and daughter
Played nearby, and she sat with her palms, soon patently,
Holding her head; and at this threshold, a rainbow
Manifested in droplets ejected from my dog's fur.
I extricate my wife's hair, wonder what I might yet know,
Living among the ivied fork, adumbration of her
In the owls' nests; with this sensation, inaudible squeak
Of unravelling ixtle twine, something cloaked astray
In prestidigitation makes this cubicle space streak
In penumbra. I leave, running back to the River Wey,
And in a specular scene, from which, as I draw nearer,
I see my family are missing, the woman is still there,
And I feel that she wants to say, “The caesura era
Is over,” but is too reserved or dumbfounded to swear
To it. But I sense that all digital data is lost.
Untwined from the line of poets, but for hard copy notes
And marginalia hastily handwritten and tossed
On the sill or secreted presciently in my coat’s
Pocket, I am dumb, or dictate in darkness, half awake
In reverie, so history finds me incoherent.
Dye of my work would not to posterity's textiles take,
But beggar archives by a binary, non-adherent.

On Discovering the Poetry of Ebenezer Elliott

The river shares its course incontinently, for fate,
And as the softest rock erodes at its eager rate,
I was first taught Hardy, then Wordsworth and muse, his kin.
Not being taught yet learning of Celia Dropkin
Erodes a harder rock anterior to schooling,
Whence then a waterfall descends, which never pooling
In prejudice is callow in liberation's lock.

My didactic Hippocrene assayed to erode rock
In an artist whose work I had previously bought,
And I made my investment unsafe, because I taught
By wheedling. Had that artist investigated my
Poems cheerfully, without my testament that I
Exist, he might not have given Bowie a hooked nose
In his new gestural portrait that otherwise owes
Little to his flight to evade my political
Freight.

Study of Fists IV

This morning, as I strode to the polling station, I was inconvenienced by two errors of judgement. In my haste, I had left the house and committed to the journey even though I was aware that my nose had started to bleed. I had sensed subconsciously, too, that I was not wearing a belt and that my shirt was not thick enough to serve, when tucked in, to hold my oversized trousers up.

But I still closed the gate behind me, and so all the way, as I greeted people, I was holding things up. My hands were anchored in my pockets, and I was sniffing and tilting my head back slightly. Without tissues, I was forced to use the edge of my index finger to wipe away the blood, and I noticed the red stain, as did the returning officer, when he handed me my voting slip.

My fist had been a gallows derrick in my pocket, where I am hung, and was now scowling red. When I got home to my wife, the blood was still wet,
And the cauliflower she was boiling, pre-prandial, smelt to me like a PE changing room in a primary school, plimsolls and faint of sweat.