Orpheus Weaponry

Let’s expect this now –
A child growing softer in its bed
Three reasons why a man would walk instead
of running to an exit
Careless, wand’ring surely towards a star
Blinks twice, hiccups, asks me where you are
A cactus on the sill –
it will.
I’ll leave it solemn standing sentry
Forgotten, not forgetting; dreamt and lost
in an evening.

Naked calf dreams, I slept
wild eyes closed.
Woke to thunder miles away, lightning seen
then crash heard
like an afterthought.
Three deer flash past
don’t wait for me don’t
stop.
White tails in harvest moonlight here then
gone.
Hear later twigs snap, I remember they were
here.
Dream again, held breath — counted five
and twenty. Frothed mouth, dreamer.
Blades of brown grass past their verdant spring
I remember dewy mornings past, but don’t wake yet.
I’ll walk a mile tonight before I wake
I’ll dream a hundred sparrows on a wire
and bless each one in turn.

A dream’s the thing that comes back
when you lose it
but only long enough
to remind you that it’s there –
only just.

Following, following, following,
cut in two to save the day
dream softer late frightened
And winter underbackwards
under foot and underwhelming
sounding into my backyard

It’s not too much to ask a man to stop
or call him what would be a third reply
and dream a hundred flying ducks above
a gliding gaggle shadowed by the sun
made shadows, silhouettes of every one

I can’t think more of what you told me
next year would be like. ONCE, once I counted
all the little vessels in your cheeks
and filled them all with blood, your own blood in your own skin. Skin.

Left out from uncertain future meeting places,
in a cold, exceptional turn of phrase
you buried in a second all I had and counted my head among the fallen.