Goats eat and **** the grass of ramparts,
stupefied cannons sit, garrisoned sentries
primed for nights of buccaneers,
seared by centuries of sun. Down shadowed
cobblestoned ramps, fortified shutters
covet rifle forend and barrel,

wresting rumored slave rebellions
from the locker of history,
while languid waves whisper indifferently
a roll call of human cargo,
chattel displaced, cast to the sea.

Here history sways to sounds
of brown skinned children
at play in breakers,
laughing, shrieking, thrashing,
buoyed by time to this vaulted brick
reverberating chamber,

here a window’s light is cast
beckoning vision past the beach,
to seek the horizon Icarus like,
to fly towards beauty in terror where
an azure sky conjoins a turquoise bay.


Copyright © 2003 Gary Brocks

There's a meadow past the village
On a hill...where magic swarms
You can see it on a summer night
When the clouds predict the storms
Life from time eternal
Starts appearing in the field
Gnomes and bluebell fairies
and the magic that they yield

You can see them from the village
Dancing in the moonlights glow
You can see the lightning jumping
You can see the ebb and flow
The pixies and the fairies
Folk who are part of their own world
Light up the distant meadow
As the magic is unfurled

Daisies and soft bluebells
fill the meadow in the sun
there is clover and some dragonflies
And young children having fun
The magic folk are hiding
Lights are hid, and tucked away
Until the humans in their world
Pack to end the day

It's then, from down the village
That the meadow lights begin
Where the magic lights the sky up
In the early gloaming din
If a human breaks the borders
Coming out and much too near
The lights go dark...and silent
For the magic world has ears

There are sentries in the meadow
All unseen to you
That alert the makers of the lights
When the humans are in view
there is magic in the meadow
magic lanterns are set free
where the world becomes a canvas
Of dancing lights for all to see