"No more moths destroyed in candle flame (desire and death) ..."

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Michael recommends these on line literary sites.

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Contact
Mr. Bradshaw

Absent Friend

After ---

No sooner had I stepped up to the bar
than Chilvers was bellowing from the corner:
`Hold on, vicar! Bradshaw`s getting chasers.`
Louis d`or were ringing on the table.

Over-dressed for May (in August), from top to toe
every bit a bottle of the black stuff,
Good Time Andy and his trouble and strife
grandly installed; next to him a fine tattoo

between the Chrisses and the empty chair
from the fingers of Scissors, fired up,
again and again on the table-top.
I pondered who it was who wasn`t there.

All I remember is the last ridiculous toast
with one glass too many of the usual,
`The glory days`, and `Que le ciel --`
and yellow drinks of questionable taste.





No More Poems About Foxes

or winter landscapes -- tracks in snow,
followed to their source, erased,
or frozen into place.

No more moths destroyed in candle
flame (desire and death), leaving
their silvery film of wing-dust

either: no trove of ancient boxed-up
love letters, quickening into new
sensation the patient passions

of the dead. None of this,
nor any book-shelf poem -- just who
rubbed shoulders with who, like people.

And amid the noise of leaving,
the ransacking and the clearing out,
no poems which then propose (but rather)

Instead of this --