in progress

the bullet's a book furrowing moonlight into occupied france

grazing the slough of lives long gone

down lanes of arcady bared by the ploughboy's gaze

look back from your carriage the moonlight's streaming through poplars

satyrs in marble a temple glimpsed by poussin

remember that cold voluptuary you brushed leaves from her lips

then kissed them

there was no fire but what burnt within you

it still burns will burn forever

strafing the under storeys blazing with homeward

desire

the bullet's a book you're reading it

in hospital corridors at night too late

to examine for tracers of

life