1
the frost creeps
over our windows again
like sugar
the summer dew
enlivens drooping grasses
September
a foreword-
we are beginning
afresh
afresh
cold railings parting
before us the dim
halls closing up
behind beneath
rooms ringing with echoes
stirring our
dust left long intact
the phoenix children
2
only the dry
paper pale ghosts of
books and broken rulers
light as helium balloons
we wake to their
strangeness
no no no we are not ready
not ready to leave
this thin light and
the movement
and voices
of our multitude
beyond the gates
i think it is calling
calling
calling to us to come forward
to the horizon’s glow
like an advert winding down
a balloon droops
the air gone somewhere
stand up
to be counted
3
in three years even our names
will have passed i think
there will be other girls
transitory as us
perhaps-
long live these children
live
a prayer
the light of striplights on black hair
these hosts
of us flaming
(the sibilance the hiss
of adolescents)
like angels or soldiers
going in
into the dark (Orphée return)
or light as we see fit
we are the
aftermath of fire and ruin
we are the rien we
do not have regrets (but I do)
we are the flowers
leaving
4
we had a reflection in the playground-
personally it was on what Siegfried Sassoon
would have made of those towers
and whether or not we should sing
and how grey the tarmac was
how blue the sky
sometimes i feel that this poem
must be completely original
or else that everyone is writing
it inside their own heads
or has written it
or will do
when the new season comes
5
is it now really?
the time to shake off
our dark shells
and the acne and exercise books
like a chrysalis
suddenly insignificant
lying discarded
clothes
on the changing room floor
and in response we are light fresh
and strong as spiders web
dreamy and
free in the gold air
or will nothing change
only the same anger
with no centre
spiralling outwards like dark blood
or oil paints spilt and spreading
simply something
we might breathe
in the air like anthrax
or bullets to silence
6
laughter of a voice
i had thought most
wise is the most startling
thing
today
when all seems twisted
confusion is like
the fractured black branches
in the wobbly
intense charcoal sketches
our ashes
the applause
dying away
can you open windows?
so many did
and hungrily
we devoured the bright air
the courtyard flowers suddenly
transformed
i want i hunger
to hold it all within me
cradle each moment like a new child
to kiss each aspect
individually
imprint the lost seconds
each with my self’s shadow
stained
irrevocably