Gallows Riddle

Around the random horseshoe wall

I helped a mason to repair,

pennies, fish-hooks, pins corrode.

A thousand years this carved stone stood

beside the well, giving it power

to comfort or to heal.

LITTLE HUNGER

I drove to Little Hunger promontory

looking for pink stone

in roofless houses huddled by the sea

to buy to build my own.

Hovels to live in, ruins to admire

from a car cruising by,

the weathered face caught in a sunset fire,

hollowed with exility;

whose gradual fall my purchase would complete,

clearing them off the land,

the seven cabins needed to create

the granite house I planned.

Once mine, I'd work on their dismemberment,

threshold, lintel, wall;

and pick a hearthstone from a rubble fragment

to make it integral.

CORNCRAKE

Petty boss of a ditch,

why so much energy and such a boring song?

Surely your mate must be tired of hearing

how little you have to say,