WITH APOLOGIES TO
MATSUO BASHO
York Viking Eric Bloodaxe
Lived by parsing others to death
Finally got parsed himself
By his brother
Edinburgh
City of heights
Dances on the fringe
Yorkminster’s tower
297 steps up
That much closer to god?
English crows
Black as California’s
And as raucous
Some things you can’t run away from
Left/right oppositeville
running into people
On sidewalks and stairs
Hey, UK., be glad I’m not driving
The tourist pretends
He’s in a novel
Set in the castle
Whose stone stairs he’s
Climbing.
Dragons await
The tourist shops
For artifacts which
Someone will one day
Dig up and display
For a tourist shopping
For artifacts.
And so on
Piles of old stones
Rise and fall
For someone to make them rise again
No rest
Sheffield
Town of steel
Stone towers thrusting
Toward green advert
Balloon
English countryside
On every inch of empty ground
Crops
Tesco
Here there
Wherever whatever
You want
The route of the East Coast express:
Leuchars cupar ladybank markinch, kirkcaldy, inverkeithing haymarket, edinburgh, berwick-upon-tweed, alnmouth, newcastle, durham, darlington, york, leeds wakefield westgate sheffield chesterfield derby tamworth birmingham new st, cheltenham spa bristol parkway bristol temple, taunton tiverton parkway exeter st davids newton abbot totnes plymouth liskeard bodmin parkway par st blazey sb goonbarrow in newquay
Every life an item on a list
Between city and railroad
High stone walls
Derby
Dreary place
Viewed from these rails
I hoped for more
Rail line
Looking across barley fields
Freeway
By grimy Newcastle
Railroad tracks
Lilacs