I AM A BIRD NOW

This picture, taken at the Venice Biennalle several years ago, seems to sit well with, and even complement, a ‘recovered’ poem from an all-but-forgotten batch of rhymed verses, circa 2012.

I Am A Bird Now, is the title of the remarkable 2005 album by Antony and The Johnsons, the cover of which features an image of the iconic Candy Darling (see my post 30 April 2021).

TRUST

Light shines on the child at the edge:     

balanced, poised, she is without fear.

She leaps into her father’s arms,

laughing, knowing she is held dear,

that Father’s love subdues all harms

and terrors: safe in the knowledge

that she enjoys the surety

his gentle, loving arms will wait

to break her fall. She has his word.

Her arms stretch out to imitate

spread wings, the action of a bird,

its flight, its feathered purity.

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THE POWER OF LOVE

The theme for June’s Open Mic event at Cafe St James (8 till 10pm, Tuesday 1st June 2021) is Romance, a subject that offers a wide range of opportunities for our local poets to reveal their tender sides.

Patrick’s Glen first appeared in my 2012 collection, Strange Journey, and is a romantic poem with a rhyme scheme that still pleases me.

PATRICK’S GLEN

Beneath a cobalt sky, wind blows the barley heads

as wrens, through ragged hawthorns, drop like tears

and all the voices of ten thousand years

converge in one throat piping in the reeds.

For here scenes are unchanging and unmoved

by all the petty vanities and schemes

and here remain the valleys, rocks and streams

our fathers and our forefathers have loved.

Here stand the granite stones that knew the shout

and felt the drum-led feet of marching men

and smelt the bloody fear along the glen

of tribes advancing or being driven out.

Here stand the stunted trees that stamp defiant now

on shoulders of dead armies crouched beneath the loam

where roots caress the riven shield, the heaume,

the eyeless socket, yellowed tooth and noble brow.

Beneath a cobalt sky you gathered meadow flowers

perhaps to capture pieces of this perfect day

as all-embracing summertime around us lay

and destiny conspired along with earthly powers

to make our bodies bend and shake like barley heads,

our hopes emerge like warriors along the windy glen,

our hearts to drop like wrens and then to rise again,

to harmonise with Time among the swaying reeds.

DIFFERENT CHARACTERS

This is one of the versions of my poem, Characters, which has been written and rewritten several times without having reached a point where I considered it ‘finished’ if, indeed, such a point exists with any poem.

CHARACTERS

Lay down the book, the story now resolved,

and close the cover, like a secret gate

that leads on to another place and time, 

where characters, whose names we knew of late

in lives, unscripted now, luxuriate.

Like sleeping children’s’ toys that come alive

in dark, somnolent houses at day’s end, 

the dazzling characters we conjured up,

from author’s mind and moving hand on pen,

resume strange lives we cannot comprehend.

May we assume they have exciting times

when free from reader and from author’s hold?

Or do they, merely actors, feed the cat,

take holidays, in winter, feel the cold?

And like ourselves, reluctantly, grow old?

 

A FINE ROMANCE

It’s always a surprise to discover a cache of long-forgotten poems tucked away in some obscure file but often it’s depressing to realise, on reading them, how mediocre they are.

I suppose I shouldn’t mourn the irretrievable hours spent crafting them because such time is never entirely wasted and there are always one or two that are worth a second look. 

Perhaps Besame Mucho is one such poem.

BESAME MUCHO

Kisses can be so diverse,

I realise.

I never knew before

how each is like a snowflake:

quite unique.

Within your arms

I am 

drab terrain made beautiful

by drifting snow.

INVISIBLE IS VISIBLE

The poem Invisible appears in this month’s edition of Snakeskin, a literary webzine founded in 1995 and still going strong: an impressive feat in an environment where lit-mags struggle to survive beyond issues two or three. As always, I’m proud to have my work featured there. You can read the other excellent poems in the May edition by clicking on the Snakeskin link in My Blog List below right.

INVISIBLE

In the den, he hunkers down, holds his breath,

makes himself invisible.

Oblivious, the parkies stand six feet away 

and speak in angry tones:

a broken pane, some daffodils beheaded.

He hears them toss his name 

back and forth between them

and holds his breath to make himself invisible.

It is summer. He is eight years old. 

He lies beneath white sheets and tries to breathe.

He is very small: not eight years old but eighty. 

The room is full of snow. 

Light spills through a high window like radiance unfolding.

He hears voices rise and fall and makes himself invisible. 

The voices drift.  

He hears them toss his name 

back and forth between them

and tries to breathe.

What matter now, the broken pane, those headless daffodils?

Will summer come again?

He makes himself invisible.

It is easy now

with no more breath to hold.

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