They came to the edge of the crater.

erupted on the skyline with a flash,

drove up a clod the size of a large house

which hung for seconds, hurtled down,

leaving in their rear a wedge-shaped mound.

Smoke drew a cloudy arm across the sun.

Bits of debris covered up the field:

a tattered flag, a sole-less boot,

a cannon wheel half-buried in the ruck;

a photograph of someone's wife and child.

Dead and dying men lay all around.

What were his orders? He forgot.

He glanced over his shoulder, failed to see

the promised reinforcements fall in line.

What next? they all were thinking as they stood

silent and waiting, pausing at the lip.

To go back was impossible;

to stay there would invite a fresh attack.

They could see nothing from the edge -

no breadth and no circumference

which in the dawn seemed shifting, limitless.

Around the thing or down into the pit?

And what had happened to the enemy -

the ones, that is, who had survived?

It yawned beneath them, depth unknown.

A thousand men suspended on the brink

who without order or command

let out a shout, plunged into it.

Black Swans

Before we married,

long before you died

you wanted me to see them

from the window of a train.

They lived in their reflection,

we in ours, did nothing

to attract the gaze

of children as we rattled past.

And there they were

just as you said they'd be,

making no ripple

on the tensile lake -

the cob heraldic

in among the reeds;

the pen's head hidden

under her black wing.

I hardly saw them

but the moment was enough

for them to enter and come back again

now that I need to find you

being gone. See that?

you said it's yours to keep.

And yes, I've kept them

from that day to this

wearing death's plumage, unaware

of their own specialness

like birds encountered in a dream

or in a mirage shimmering.

The Boy Who'd Lived Before

Wake up. It's time to go. A distant sea

is lapping at your door.

Remember how it lulled you into sleep?

You've seen this place before:

in dreams perhaps

of when you were that child -

the other life you fell through into this

where someone called you

by a different name

and planes came to the island,

making runways on the beach.

We'll take you back to see if you can find

some feature you might recognise:

the white house with a creaking gate

half-hidden by the dunes;

your brother and your sister

waving from the lane; the flecks

of gold-dust in your other mother's eyes.

Off the Map

A map of tiles

on the train station wall.

The sepia wash of nicotine

has left them creamy, cracked.

And still you can trace

the obsolete routes

that criss-crossed the land

before we were born.

the residue of Empire:

rail track, coalmines, mills -

lost cities on the edge of things

that were important once

but since have slipped

and have no place

in the complesx design

that seems to hold

it all together now

on these invisible

conceptual strings.

It's here you'll find

what's left of trade,

of rule and politics.

Why is it no one chose to show

the places off the map;

the far-off places

where we never go

except to see the dead

or visit relatives? Where a girl

with a battered suitcase waits

on some deserted platform for a train

to rush her through the flatlands,

past fields of oil-seed rape

where promise keeps receding

to these backwater towns

at the end of the line

that offer no escape.

Standards

My father sang the standards

through the long months of the strike:

When Day Is Done, My Foolish Heart.

A poor man's Frank Sinatra

in striped suit and straight black tie

he'd step into the spotlight,

gently tap the waiting mike.

his flattedned vowels drifted through

the crowded concert room.

Anything was better

that the failing picket line.

He sang, the women swooned:

Speak Softly Love, My Kind of Town.

There was snow and bitter fighting.

My father slicked his hair back,

disappeared into the night

and one by one

the earmarked pits shut down.

A Cabin in the Woods

One bare room, a big brass bed,

a sampler there above it

on the wall, a quilt

thrown back to emphasise

a stark simplicity

I thought had vanished

with the Civil War.

Nothing to distract

my stranger's eye

and nothing to impress -

except a plain jug

on the windowsill

untouched, attracting light,

a family bible, leather-bound:

foxed pages, broken clasp.

On a nail behind the door

a threadbare homespun dress

made in the year that Grant and Lee

clashed in the Wilderness.