Chesil Beach
Will it ever happen? My voice falters
through this late illness
Oh to be reborn (higher)
as Mr Ian McEwan –
which is a fictional acclaim
of another person
Let us measure the worn pebbles
strewn by his ins and outs of moons
along his old pile – his stretched bank
of slipping shingle
See how his beached fishermen
can assume their sailed-to distance
away from where they launched off
just by looking at relative sizes
of landed on stones
like word counts – risen by worn tides
and daily changes of amplitude
He would not commit my fraud
of publishing self-edited works
Me – this writer of verse stories
sucking off my life of unsure
goings on
Florence – my guide who fumbles –
who will want to count out my medication
and place them in tight pill trays
We have drunk and spun
at our capital’s 100 Club –
below brick-pressed soil
of Central London’s weight –
lined in red from east to west
and back
again
We handled a soft give
of art’s sticks
which others call out as brushes
Now they are my voice
Her hands tremble when holding
blue porcelain before that tight vicar
who is leashed to his god by
a bleached-white collar
My strung semen and shame lies
on her virgin skin – a tugged garter
of exertions off cocksureness
I am Edward too-knowing
of only birdsong
led astray by my wife’s words
that we can live another life
of queers
by being separate – but still matched
Your married choice
was of a foolish husband
and an incomplete writer
Please read On Chesil Beach
to understand love