Do not tarry for too many minutes
below Chanctonbury's decimated
circle of silvered-skin beech trees
They were planted without regard
for any long-term fixing agreement
set fast to grow by a man's measures
of water on their fragile root . . .
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The tin top cottages
should be haunted – but there is no ghost –
no made-pail Hoogstraten …/
This bar’s serving hatch is always left agape –
tonight I see it is a varnished picture frame
holding unfair perspectives of the pirouettes
of the not-Degas barmaids in uniform black …/
They say that there is a ghost
in every old house
That frigorific forms will rise
to meet with warm blood
and damp bones …
My father died
aged fifty-five,
I was aged
twenty-three,
he slipped away
at St. Peter’s
…