My voice carries further, almost

All the way to the face, I go

But not forth, or I went suspended

Itself, touching the all that isn’t.

After England it could not be kept

Together, hasn’t fallen apart,

Moves like noon shadows

Forced out from the corners

Along a street of expectations. 
Not really. After England used-to

Has a present tense, materials

Stay both stolen and mine,

Anthology without exclusions

Where I imagined I saw the time

After England before it arrived.

I went out to meet the thing

Behind things, displeased with all

The available combinations
Living after England is

Then isn’t, where laughter opens

Onto the short-lived feeling

You should know how to

Go whole days doing

(You had everything you needed)

But do not, after England,

Have a fucking clue.

The food no longer safe,
Phrases stop short of,

No news is good, good

Things come, all signs point,

Objects may appear, it has

The ring. Possession is 9/10ths

Firing on all. Ignorance is.

My lips are. The grass is

Always. After England

The feel of not to feel
When sky invisibly divides

To let tomorrow in, where it’s better

To work than not to, far

Better to do neither, in fact

That’s your job now, reaching out

To touch a gloved hand to the face

Of the weather we walked off in

After England muttering England

Has never been enough
After itself, this little one

Where a good price is contradiction,

Getting your Albion

On then off then again.

And there are no events

After England, rhythms

Have taken their place, flowering

Trees set out along the shoulder

Pink and white as ideals
Of how England was or will be,

The wrong words in the right

Order, an imaginary language

With real poems in it.

After England, empire moves

West but knowledge just spins,

Narrowly missing it, or not,

In the unsung songs of the dead

I came to late, after
As in so much further

Behind you’re out in front

Where not knowing is.

And you call it experiment,

The experiment of the sea

Pouring into the city, people

Into squares, forms that can’t

Hold so much, weren’t

Designed with this in mind
Like the mind itself, builded

Here from ancient materials

That couldn’t predict the future

Or even rise to meet it

But maintain a right of way.

Left through this hedge across

Two fields of hops and lavender,

Up the slope of the iron-age fort

Till you drown in a view of the sea.