The Ice Man

In fugutive silence
Under cover of darkness
in the witching hour
a flinty graffiti artist slopes along
Spiky cartoons, he draws, and leggy figures
The ice man

He scatters spicules of snow in geometric flecks
Catches time in mid tick like a stopwatch
Splinters the river into shattered fossils
ferns, feathers and fish bones
forms clocks of ice with crazy fissured angles
and cutting edge architecture –
a chaotic kitchen, gazing at the stars
open to the stars
complete with icicle cutlery,  he’s proud of his icicles

Magics up a looking glass world of ice and fire
castles and kaleidoscopes
immediate as an ice axe but old as Saturn
whose moon, Encephaladus, is rumoured
to harbour ice-covered oceans

We three follow soon after with the sun – in rarefied air
poking holes and slithering on the steps
crunch, click and snap
oh look – there’s a gap toothed kraken creeping up out of the pool under the bridge

If you taste it, it’s cold as electricity but rather gritty
Peter tests a frozen tarn and gets one wet foot
We sit on our raincoats in a friendly triangle
cooking up hot noodles and dividing an apple
Max’s tripod helps keep the billy warm