Poem 5

I nailed the petrichor smell of rain on hot concrete, tarmac or ground here – closest to the aroma of a bread factory … this poem powerfully evokes for me that particular six o’clock in the evening melancholy (see Poem 1) that I would come to think of as ‘getting caught in the gloaming’ …

( I like the shag’s claws, and the image of dust tamping out raindrops – opposite to its usual use in terms of tamping out fire but also correct in its original sense of packing an explosive with earth … )

Evensong

The starling calling greyness into the dusk
hot bread smell of dust
                            tamping out drops of rain
the sound of every different calibre of car
on the hill
a strip of flat matt blue mountains
               torn off the sunset

                  this loneliness won't leave me alone

you say you feel homesick
lying in your bed at home and I have this problem
         with 'wistfulness'
in the early evenings
                                      we don't mesh
we're sweet and concerned
                                                  but our hands fall
and the day reels off round the earth
dragging shag's claws of shadow

                  this loneliness won't leave us alone