The open side gate invites you to trespass
down the paths that diverge and peter out
in a forest where the grass has grown to tree height,
engulfing a palace with its windows blackened,
its flag a threadbare standard.
The scattered body parts of butchered statues
and models of extraterrestrial subjects cast in cold, hard earth
are the work of the giant trying to bury himself in the car park.
After closing time his head emerges fully from the sand.
He shakes his shoulders, heaves himself upright
and strides across the unkempt lawn
sending deer bolting like hares into the thicket.
He plucks boulders from the ground like artichokes
and with tools of fossilised bone works his craft.
There is always something new the next morning;
a ladder laden with boots, a woman’s name in Hollywood size lettering,
a petrified figure clawing at the graveyard grey wall
that separates this from all that is real.
down the paths that diverge and peter out
in a forest where the grass has grown to tree height,
engulfing a palace with its windows blackened,
its flag a threadbare standard.
The scattered body parts of butchered statues
and models of extraterrestrial subjects cast in cold, hard earth
are the work of the giant trying to bury himself in the car park.
After closing time his head emerges fully from the sand.
He shakes his shoulders, heaves himself upright
and strides across the unkempt lawn
sending deer bolting like hares into the thicket.
He plucks boulders from the ground like artichokes
and with tools of fossilised bone works his craft.
There is always something new the next morning;
a ladder laden with boots, a woman’s name in Hollywood size lettering,
a petrified figure clawing at the graveyard grey wall
that separates this from all that is real.