An Australian Mountain Climber Visits West Yorkshire and Falls in Love

So this is how the ground swells in your cold corner of earth, now, is it? Tell me, what’s a hill to another hill, then? Eye-level! That’s what. Our difference is in metres. Which, granted, is a lot for two people, but really very little for two hills. I hate to see you lonely as a trig-point in the snow, I can’t bear the thought of it. You, up there, on your own like that. I want you like the sea, which is lonely too, but at least it’s consistent. I want you stretched out the way the sea stretches out, infinity with a finishing line, where you can see quite clearly that the ocean goes on and on forever, and yet still, there it is, pink as night, plain as sea-light, the end!



Autumn Song

When the arils on the yew tree like earbuds sprout
it’s time to start looking down
in the field where they shot the greyhound through his bright
green woolly jumper for looking at sheep funny

Lucky Dog they called him,
cause Derren Brown came to the Valley
and convinced some poor prick
that if he pet the dog he’d win the postcode lotto
which he did and he was happy till he got hit by a moss
green mazda and splattered
all over the hubcap. What I’m trying to say

is keep your dirty paws off my white sheep. I’m trying
to say something about the way blood spreads
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