Sunday 6 June 2010

Snippet

Where Lilith goes there follows
a confusion of bright hair;
Eve's glory, though, is closely bound
and modest as a prayer.

What anguish then for those
who would be wild as well as loved;
to be embraced, a captive,
or an Amazon unmoved?

June, 2010

From the summer of 2007

Song of the Sea Crab

Crab dances sideways for her life

and snaps her claws at what she must.
She'll rarely go by paths direct;
more rarely still, entirely trust.

Crab knows how waters ebb and flow
and feels Earth's stir as soft sands shift.
She follows where the pale Moon shows,
on midnight tides, where sea-stars drift.

Sad Crab then lifts dim eyes to skies
and weeps to think how love must wane.
This moon grants much but more denies;
gives up, but, waxing, draws again.

Shy Crab inhabits little light
and likely opts to look aslant;
sees day, in faith, lay down with night -
but knows how sweetly Moon enchants.

Snippet: Summer, 2007


Angel in the market place,
looking for a home.
Both she and I reduced in price
but much in value grown.

Snippet

A Poet is Ambassador

A poet's an ambassador
from foreign lands remote;
but little will so signify
by etiquette or cut of coat.

Nor will she ape the diplomat
who measures out his tongue
to ecstasy he does not feel
till babble strangles song.

A poet sings her mortal soul:
she whistles through the dark.
What grace befalls she'll gladly tell -
damnation's softly spoke.

Summer, 2007

Augury

Besieged by magpies, everywhere:
I cannot walk but they are there
to squawk and screech and flap a din
that stifles speech and prompts a prayer.

Heart asks what interlopers mean,
that come so bold, in black and white:
as darkling brides to wed a lamb,
or thieves to steal a light?

Dull souls have studied, age on age,
the misery of mortals past;
and sought in faith's illumined page
the refuge of the just.

But what if magpies flock to bring
that bitterness that bridles soul?
There will I dance in death's bright ring -
and will God's thunder roll?