On Frenchwood Knoll

City drenched.
We bend against the rain.
Sandstone soaked,
Corporate faces are too pinched to sob.
The rain drops laugh tearfully,
Drip down red.
The bricks outlive the factories.
Vacant shops are hollowed out.
The ectoplasm of capitalism recedes
Like the spectre of Marxism.

On Frenchwood knoll
I met a tribesman who pointed
To the hills across the river,
Turbulent sky and spiralling stars,
I touched the earth and felt her rhythm,
Dark pulse caught
Between the supermarket and spire.
Sold off, covered over, offered up,
Remembered only by the weather.

Cockersand Abbey

Chapter house meets silver frieze of dappled
clouds dipped in river. Beacon white sun lights
the margins of eyes; prior, pilgrim, traveller.
Holiday makers rush to shore, seekers
of ages dress lost walls. Broken healers
see a liminal sky, on a statue writ
in silver: Mars Nodontis. “Be our healer.
Beside the lapping tides and flashing sky,
Cloud Maker, fix our wounds and make us whole.
Return this no-time to a holy day.”