Velux 1
Velux window,
headspace
over a slanted booth,
hatch in the mind,
the hours refracting
on blank paper
or printed page,
the pane
hinged at the hip
for more tilt
should tilt
be required.
Pitch and yaw.
Pull down
on the top bar
to unseal the sky,
for a hit of air.
Glazed hob or halo
on hot days,
and some nights
the silversmith moon
delivers
an empty tray
to the narrow desk.
Glider cockpit,
chancel-for-one,
oblique alcove
for piloting
angled thought
through diagonal light.
Velux 2
Dear reader,
this morning the poet
is under the Velux,
fontanel
in the pitched roof,
camera lucida
throwing
barbed-wire longhand
at hotchpotch skies,
glass planchette
elbowing
cloud-edge and cloudbase
onto a scrawled page,
dog-legged
illumination
proofing
and proving,
the kinked light
a merciless critic
of passable words
and ‘finished’ works.
He’ll dither a while,
poem-less under
trepanned tiles, stalled
in the anglepoise
of heaven
and desk,
damned if he’ll rhyme
miracle
with spiracle
These poems feature in “How We Live Now”, from the New Statesman’s Summer 2020 issue.
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