Wilkinson, Liam
Small Hours: Sketchbook Fragments
Liam Wilkinson
Liam Wilkinson writes, “The following fragments are sketches that I capture whenever and wherever I can—in my notebook, on scraps of paper, in my mobile phone at any moment that may present itself. Though I have a background as a writer of haiku and its related forms, these recent fragment poems are more free, often abstract word-paintings that land as they fall, with few or none of the revisions that haiku frequently demands. They are fragments of day or night, caught in a jar.”
:::
summer breeze
the cool
green shadow
of a blimp
::
memory
slipped into
like a winter
coat
::
where there
should be
something
nothing
::
light from
another room
exciting silence
of solitude
::
the sad
elimination
of years
of dust
::
and so
I return
to this
jazz blue night
::
drifting
sense of needing
to do
something
::
looking
looking
and not finding
myself
::
weekend
no work
to make me want
no work
::
new fences
round old
freedoms
gone
::
silent seaside
grey bare
rooms behind
thick glass
::
outside the shop
yellowed
paperbacks lie
fluttering
::
early
on the prom
a shutter
fluttering
::
Blackpool prom
crash of waves
and last
night’s bottles
::
small hours
a cup of tea
balanced on
a sofa arm
::
dust
on cold
half-burned
candles
::
street noises
climbing up
into this
guest bedroom
::
the book
I’m re-reading
at rest
on the hotel floor
::
dawn light
sitting with me
for a moment
in the kitchen
::
dawn blue
I picture
myself
from behind
::
first light
harbour fills
with tide
and gull
::
tea
in the night
and a piece
of lined paper
::
streaks
of street-lit
branches
in the city night
::
night thinning
to nothing
but the breath
in your nose
::
a grief
for sleep
on your
pale face
::
the strange
animal
of that
wet dishcloth
::
melting
into magnolia
this nothing
doing day
::
room fits
to the flicker
of black and white
movies
::
March
winds
wound around
railings
::
butter moon
hanging
in a fissure
of night
::
the pop
pop of
Bladderwrack
beneath our feet
::
fingering
the oarweed
drying
on the rocks
::
the night
slowly spirals
like a
moon snail shell
::
dizzied
by the pattern
on a
calico clam
::
under moon-
light
her dark
secret