for Jez, Huw, “Disco” Dan, Anthony, Rufus and Paula
better to carve names

in a tree in some lost valley

known only to tribes long since

vanished like wisps of smoke

better to ask the wind the heedless

bitter fickle wind to carry your kisses

for the night to stop listening, better

for the age to stop conflating hubris

with pride and for the angry and the

disavowed to stop grasping for that

one perfect word that will melt the

edifice like a shadow, better all the

unloved and the loveless reach some

sort of pact and lie down together in

the molten dark of an improbable night

than that a poem of mine should ever

justify the leaden silence of this house