The moon's a dying ember
This evening in late September

A ***** copper coin
Resting on her porcelain ****

A mosaic of Ancient Corinth
As the soldiers passed
In blood-red rags
And orange

(c) Rafael Alfonzo

Last night we shared a rock in the sand. We sat close, sipping off a large bottle of red wine. Watching the silver silhouette of the waves and the dance of the moonshine in the current, we passed the bottle back and forth and drank. In silence we were mesmerized. The moons reflection played there in the surf from someplace beyond the water, within it, vanishing and re-lighting and then vanishing again, like a game of sparks, of white hot fireworks, winking for us between each rise and fall of the waves. She was lost in the beauty of it and I was beside her lost all the same in its beauty and the beauty of the moment. The wine warmed my cheeks from the cool autumn breeze riding in onto the shore. She rested her head on my shoulder. All night long as we held the nakedness of one another, our figures tessellated beneath the sheets, I dreamt of the waves and the moonshine-sparks and her hair on the ***** of my neck. I dreamt of it all the next day. I write these words with the dream still fresh in my imagination. I am still dreaming of it; of her and the moonshine in the waves and the shape of her body flush against mine in the sheets and the softness of her skin and I cannot remember the moment before I fell asleep there but I can remember awakening and she was in my arms in the morning. My hands felt every curve of her flesh. I held the kiss, like one holds back tears, and then I kissed her. She moaned and squeezed my hand in hers and slightly lifted a corner of her lips. I fell back asleep. Now, for eternity, I shall be cleansed each time this dream returns, and left wondering at a curious emptiness when it falls away, until it washes over me again. Such is the way she comes and goes – a dazzling display of hot white flames and sparks – more magical than the light of the sun.

(c) Rafael Alfonzo

‘Hush ye, hush ye, little pet ye,
Hush ye, hush ye, do not fret ye
The Black Douglas shall not get ye’
(Northern English lullaby)

The Scottish records call him ‘The Good’
The English call him ‘The Black’,
They never knew just where he was hid
Before he would launch his attack,

He stood alongside Robert the Bruce
And they learned from their defeats,
Hit hard and fast with a mobile force
And be swift in their retreats.

They captured Roxburgh Castle at last
To the ire of Edward’s spleen,
Disguised as cows so they wouldn’t arouse,
They scaled the walls unseen.

And so the English called him ‘The Black’
For his many heinous deeds,
But he saw them off at Bannockburn,
When his spearmen killed their steeds.

The Bruce was weary and short his breath
With his soul bowed down by sin,
He told of his need to atone the death
Of his rival, ‘The Red’ John Comyn.

They’d come together at Greyfriar’s Kirk
And had fought, they’d both be king,
And there in front of the altar, Bruce
Had murdered his rival, Comyn.

‘So take my heart from my Scottish shores
To the Holy Land, to atone,
My heart will help you defeat the Moors
And my soul may then come home.’

The Black Douglas took on the task
And he went to fight the Moors,
But Alfonzo held his army back
And the Douglas fell from his horse.

They took his flesh and they boiled his bones
But they first embalmed his heart,
Then sent them back to his Scottish home
Though they somehow came apart.

The heart was found in the Douglas vault
In the ancient Kirk St. Bride,
But when they opened the old stone vault
His bones were not inside.

Perhaps they wander the Holy Land
In a search for the heart of Bruce,
He’d flung it at the advancing Moors
Before he fell off his horse.

But Melrose Abbey has Bruce’s heart
So his wanderings are in vain,
Though his soul will search ‘til his bones are found
For the sake of the Douglas name.

David Lewis Paget