Criccieth

I am eating a banana looking out to sea
in Criccieth – the sea glitter and hot hair
and the comfortable black plastic bench –
I’m drinking flat coke and digesting
a peanut butter sandwich, the orange
see through tupperware – orange sea – the castle
is closed on Wednesdays, so we’re sat
discussing where we should eat this evening –
isn’t life a MAX-SCORE sometimes?
She’s got a pink yellow black pattern dress
with jewels and flowers. We spent hours
listening to that story of the stupidest jewel thief –
I stare out watching for dolphins, as I learned –
I expand the concept of death into this life –
like a big bell-shaped cloud and it’s ringing –
A very precise future awaits us –
it’s strange how it overhangs everything.
A climate of expectation – I give up!
Let’s retire here, and watch the sky
shatter and fall over the sea’s glitter.

*

Deep in the hills I can bury my dreams
In slate-mine caverns where the landscape
holds you – like two hands cupping yours
warm in the sun on a black plastic bench
and then she kisses your finger –
people pass to and fro in carriages
in the culture – rumbling back and forth
in temperate rainforests – but in the depth
there are real economies, rich and fungal –
a stone drips into a pool and an economy
wakes, a pearly eye slipping out of the water.
A mountainous mouth of blue-black stone
slick with slimes and cracked
for the pressure from springs – steam, haunting
thrills through the vanished mines
whispering – roaring – tax the rich

A doomed toad, fallen through a rusted grate
where bars have been ground off, ropes hung,
sits still and listens, its throat twitching –
tax them out of existence