Keith Hilling

Mudlark

A Mudlark is someone who searches
in river mud for treasures, as transient

things are sea deep in syntax. Suffocated
butterflies. The killing jar then the worst

of the games like grasping happiness
as if they wanted to crush it, madness is

something rare in individuals, the regularity
of their design forbids all wandering as unhappy.

Scented leaves in a button jar, the hill
battered with flames, tears left by the well

from the crevices of their hides, so much deepens,
walk through fire, coal whippers convey, found metre -

found response, plundered stacks neat
chiselled curves - curling arms freed.