Poetry is the language of intensity. Because we are going to die, an expression of intensity is justified.

                                      — C.D. Wright



Grateful acknowledgement is made to Oana Cambrea for the use of her digital art, Autumn (2007).



In Memoriam


sonnenizio on a line from Jarman


Day washes down the city streets with noise.
Like rain as it takes the daisies, petal by petal, apart.
Or grief after the first glass of the day burns
the throat. Passing lorries rumble a daydream

of horses. Daylight snuffs out night lamps,
neon signs from the sidewalks. Is day blindness
a loss itself, the way aging is a découpage
of deathdays that are meaningful to no one

but yourself? The rush hour injects its daily
overdose into antennae. Like débris, pigeons collect
on rooftops. Car horns cry yesterday's
obituary from the coffee table: a déjà vu of sorts,

a day lily, its stem snapping from your heart
because some days whatever you love is dead.



                         runner-up in Biscuit International Poetry Prize 2008 (UK)