Stinking Iris (Iris Foetidissima)
Kilve

sea-cliffs &
a green confluence of
waters

daggered leaves
      of flower-de-luce
cut your smile
in slices
of salt light

under a fossil
triturate, I conceal
charred letters
for you to dis-
               cover

these stones are shaped by
desire, though you
will not believe it;

it is a country where you are,
a delicate
recurve of tepals

a ‘pencilling’ of purple-gray/
       blue-gray
on tombs at Carnac:

Iris who leads a woman’s soul
to the fields of Elysium

“growing more grateful & aromatic
as it dries”



Cow-Wheat (Melampyrum Pratense)
Five Lords' Wood, Quantock

visions of finding
the source
among                 these juicy
                          sluices

sweat dries
& cools as we ascend

by leaf   by moss     by fern

                  fleck

in aqua-
shadow

acts of rapine
on the grass, a
contamination
ground down
to poverty bread

the strong grip of your hand
as you pull me
over a dream threshold

making a moue
in the darkness

                          (petal-tube)

“hold me
or I will escape you”



Elder (Sambucus Nigra)
Culbone

voltage
accrued
since before
Atlantis

leprous crystals
irrupt
each atom,  the woods
become hyaline;

incandescent
in shadows of
narcolepsy

Eldrun
or Hyllan-tree

wherein a witch
embarks herself, will

bleed
at midsummer,
reverse
lightning

where
vortices
of 5-petalled flowers
brush lips
skin
hair

by yeast
& muscatel

we are both now

forespoken




Stinging Nettle (Urticus Dioica)
Castle Hill, Stowey

infesting the
perimeter of the
incendiary field we

lie down in
& fall into the sky

cirrus fibrils a
prolegomenon
to thorms in the S.W.

veins of sorrel & leporine
spoors
& the 2 pale horses
what should they signify?

“beset with little prickles”
flagella for the
subjugation of wayward
                            flesh

(an early photographer of the Linnaean
collection having been stung by a nettle
                                    dried 200 years)

though makes a good thick
                        soup
heating &
      rich for the blood