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Conor Letham Mar 2013
I laid the twigs as bones,
blanketed in my favourite
summer leaves tucked
inside the fire-nest.

Newspaper down
nestled a small ruby
placed in the centre,

then grew a childish flame
dancing in the brick ***

its cries singing upward
as autumnal ghosts,  
in their flickered gasps,

cackled their summer
screams as they fell
back through black coal,
seeds for next season.
Conor Letham Feb 2013
fingertip strands spread
like a flower gulping
embers delicately held

tight in lingered lips.
Sticking between folds
hands warm as honey

trap the air in
and through
touch and kiss.

These kids remain
forever stuck with
golden memories.
Conor Letham Dec 2012
pushed clouds out,
pursed lips like
whistling in a shell,

reverbs into tumbler
held down
and spirals back.

Then, as it rises,
Advocaat crackles
thunder-yellow,

tickling the insides
into familiar
house-warm feeling.
Conor Letham Dec 2012
air-goggles clasped
eyeing up slickness
like a gull hangs over

bright airy gasps
brings arms up
feeling the tilt

toward water-sky
kicks up then down
to earth-pull push
Conor Letham Nov 2012
‘That one's for sorrow,’
she said,

holding my sleeved stump
and pointed

to dancing in small floods,
glossed feathers

dripped in dips of a path.
I asked,

why's it sad? ‘She’s lost someone,’
she replied,

‘Two’s for joy.’ I looked back
beady eyed,

to cast out my hand
for hers.
Conor Letham Nov 2012
The bones of you spoke to mine,
finger and thumb picking the ivory,
screaming softly at daintiest pushes
and ground sweetly at my bones.

My hands washed over the high keys,
though settled for the low. You see,
my fingers ached without yours.
They suited the high; they were nimble

and sharply caught each note,
whilst I kept the wallowing octaves
moaning like an ocean’s breath.
Now the hammers thundered softly,

they plummet through the sails
having had lost that lengthy breeze,
tumbling into a lonesome abyss.
I had you, though now your chime

resonates right through the depths;
it leaves my heart crying for a shine,
a glimmer in the dark. These bones
play bones, and a piano plays me.
Conor Letham Oct 2012
In the garden out back
I used to gather up leaves,
looking like burnt flames
crisping up on my lawn.

The sun had stained them
from springtime children
to tarnished stars, waiting
on the ground for my dance.

They would  blush for me
and crackle in delight
as I pirouetted around
then eagerly pounced,

piling up a nest so then
as the winter wind came,
roughly rubbing my cheek,
I'd sit there with sandwiches.
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