Winter trees

Tree in winter
To the eye, you stand
Dead to the world

Your lush facade
Long yellowed
You are revealed

Rough and ill-grown
I stare as you sigh
Waiting in mist

For new days
Spring and fresh
Buds promising life

High cocoons

Itemised for expedition and
Packed with precision we
Encapsulate our lives in
Tiny gallery exhibitions

For fear of attention we
Focus on division and
Blanket our resentment of
Our graceless condition

Jetlag

Like silt on a river bed
Minutes gather, drift.
Carried lightly above
I dream of my sleep;
Ache through the hours
That wash around, past

Fragments of reflection
Smashed, set spinning.
Caught and lost, again
Caught... Unrecognised.
I surrender and roll
Overboard to drown

Towers at dusk

With the cold, black eyes
Of ten thousand trophy sharks
The city's towers stand, watching
Beneath grey, asthmatic skies

We called them to attention
Sifted sand, smelted steel; we
Brought the mountains down
In this great, dark intervention

And now, painted pastel-pink
By the ailing brush of winter sun
They crowd lost and lonely
Too long left to stand and think