Ten thousand cuckolds in Iceland

like smouldering stars above its eaves.With grubby hands he shields his eyes,but cannot stop the acrid tearsfrom flowing down his ruddy cheeks.The sum and meaning of his fearsare in the yellow smoke that reeks.His bale of hay receives a tine,his scrawny hound a fleshless husk,while in his sty a greedy swinewades in the slop of…

but do not see the Lord,just Artemis and Mars.Above the deep, dark lake,the moonlight’s never said:‘dawn is about to breakand heaven turn bright red.’Across the waves, an owlhas borne away its prey,and something on the prowlblasphemes the light of day.The hope a mooncalf followsis sacrifice for slaughter,and yet the wings of swallowsstill skip across the…

Die ungebornen Enkel.’The doves alight. The rooks cast shadows down.And yet more trains arrive at Cracow Centralwith wounded soldiers, while still others leavefor Gorlitz and the not too distant front.Ludwig Wittgenstein arrives with a frown,his logical thoughts not yet transcendental,his gold watch rubbing his grey jacket’s sleeve.He doesn’t know yet what he will confront.He doesn’t…

We crossed the bridge in Wheatland, and then racedby Dunbar Slag, and two scrap metal yards.Old Bill was sleeping near his pit-bull Pug,but woke when he caught ear of grandpa’s voice.They went inside, then came out with a jugof what Old Bill called “Pennsylvania’s Choice.”They drank it like spring water, cold and pure,reminisced about what…

there is a road that leads to birches,pocked with dark puddles and tank tracks,above which no white dove perches.Green men pray to another Christ,a Fulcrum falling overhead,a saviour or a poltergeist,the sun behind it, fierce and red.

He holds the helm fast, tries to catch his bearingsin the mirror of a bloodshot eye.A tempest bellows, “All clouds lead to Rome.Light pours down on both the preyed and preying.”Grateful for the dark, the light and greying,he spurns his ache and calls the moment home.