Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Storm



The storm is keeping me awake;
the dogs, discordant tuning forks,
and
the whine of lost souls
in the electricity wires.

Tossing, a mobile in the gusts,
waiting for the light to clank
back
but knowing it’s beyond the gap
where the wind is crowding in.

Your unhappy face turning away
to hide the tears,
and
the storm banging on that nail
all night, the whole night long.


Saturday, October 27, 2018

Encounter



When she gave me her hand, I was instantly struck
by the elegance and grace of her movement.
Her hand was slender and magnificently gloved
in white blossoms that had tinges of pink
near the edges of its petals, and they were falling,
falling so thickly that a doily of snowflakes
had formed around her feet.

She held me enchanted in the centre of her smile;
I took her hand, never noticing the thorns,
and my blood dripped crimson bright berries down.

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Sometimes it takes a long time to see the real person

In sickness there was only you 

  
light as a feather;
relieved of the weight
of position and pride;

neither bluff nor brashness
nor the strength
to be more than your dying self. 

Friday, October 19, 2018

She came to test me.*




Did her hair flow bright as honey down her back? 
Was the wild rose the blossoming of her cheeks? 
Or, was her face was a web of soil-filled furrows?  
Were her eyes flinty with the cunning of age?  
  
I passed the test of kingship, I did not falter; 
She came old into my eyes, but was young in my arms, 
With fingers flowing gently over my temples,  
Breath sweet in the full bloom of her mouth, 
Voice rich as the blackbird’s on the highest branch of an oak.  
For a king must be one with the spirit of the land 
whether it be dressed in the barehaggard bones of January,  
or the lush green coat bejewelled in May. 


*The high kings of Ireland had to lie with (or marry) the Hag to show that they were beyond being seduced 
by the easy things in life.

Saturday, October 13, 2018

Blue-veined old hands :





I never saw them coming
till they were spread bleak
as the limbs of Winter trees
across vacant heavens.

When I said I loved you
I whacked at the wall
with a stick of oar weed
picked off the strand.

Cantankerous old fool :
never saw him coming
till words I spat out
fell like lightning turned
to twigs of rotten wood.

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

New Poem




I have set myself up to write a poem
and am sitting set before the screen
and

Saturday, October 6, 2018

Forgetting




Mosaic of sunlight,
gold and russet leaves;
becalmed now in memory loss.

A moment:
another leaf falling
with a sound that is not heard.

That pile of  leaves growing;
the heartbreak:
soon this maple will be bare.

Monday, October 1, 2018

The Stars



The stars are tossed across the drumlins of the sky.
I am looking to see the road you’ve taken
And I think I see it, and  you;
Andyou are singing Bring back my Bonnie
And you are laughing, and looking back
Over your shoulder.  Yes I think you are.
And now I am singing; we’re all singing
Bring back my Bonnie, and the road is getting longer
Behind us, and you are handing back sweets, and I ‘m smiling
And you sing Ten Green Bottles; we  all sing
Between the rolling fields of night, and then
You have rounded some bend, and are singing,
But smaller and smaller and smaller and
and I cannot see
just the stars.