Nathan Thompson [England]
HOTEL
coupling out of bed
the space beyond the window
the space here
and automatic darkness
grasps a spider by each hand
and leads her to the next room
where a man named is snoring. He is a friend and he has spent the day in the manufacture
of motorised bath chairs
with sweat
face slanting his pillow
a nightmare
democratic slightness
reaches for his lover finds
her gone moves to a new dream
where an angel is procreating asexually and limpets and barnacles smack at its surface
slipping off as a beak appears
long neck
a fully formless cartwheel
unfurling
night mandala
SOLSTICE
collateral processed
it is a line drawing
corona surrounding a candle
witch this stick hazel
stunted forest echoes
fingers broken lichen covers the boulders
what’s to check swallows
waiting granite seams
hair left behind whose footsteps
AFTER THE STORIES
The air just won’t bulge through your curtains this evening. Even outside it feels like it is
coming on to you stoned with a perfume swagger. Maybe it’s like this to be water under oil
and if so, yes I should become an environmentalist
***
then I’ll lobby for cleaner owls, who are holding back stickiness with their wings. It’s why
their undersides are a different colour. They used to be uniform as lab technicians bringing
you bundled pellets by the star-load
***
asleep tonight tucked under the city’s afterglow quilted rhymed in furry light. If we
engage with them awake I worry we might become bitter and so the stars leave sadly as if
they’ve drunkenly groped your girlfriend
***
whose other girlfriend’s Greenpeace card is on the dresser, masquerading her as still present in
the same way as stoicism is still a factor. So we’ll roll that stone right back into place
***
like shutting the curtains,
which is an old doctor’s joke for every would-be Aladdin.
| 
