"backcloth" poems
Her scarf a la Bardot,
In suede flats for the walk,
She came with me one evening
For air and friendly talk.
We crossed the quiet river,
Took the embankment walk.
Traffic holding its breath,
Sky a tense diaphragm:
Dusk hung like a backcloth
That shook where a swan swam,
Tremulous as a hawk
Hanging deadly, calm.
A vacuum of need
Collapsed each hunting heart
But tremulously we held
As hawk and prey apart,
Preserved classic decorum,
Deployed our talk with art.
Our Juvenilia
Had taught us both to wait,
Not to publish feeling
And regret it all too late -
Mushroom loves already
Had puffed and burst in hate.
So, chary and excited,
As a thrush linked on a hawk,
We thrilled to the March twilight
With nervous childish talk:
Still waters running deep
Along the embankment walk.
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Her scarf a la Bardot,
In suede flats for the walk,
She came with me one evening
For air and friendly talk.
We crossed the quiet river,
Took the embankment walk.
Traffic holding its breath,
Sky a tense diaphragm:
Dusk hung like a backcloth
That shook where a swan swam,
Tremulous as a hawk
Hanging deadly, calm.
A vacuum of need
Collapsed each hunting heart
But tremulously we held
As hawk and prey apart,
Preserved classic decorum,
Deployed our talk with art.
Our Juvenilia
Had taught us both to wait,
Not to publish feeling
And regret it all too late -
Mushroom loves already
Had puffed and burst in hate.
So, chary and excited,
As a thrush linked on a hawk,
We thrilled to the March twilight
With nervous childish talk:
Still waters running deep
Along the embankment walk.
Dec 9, 2009
Dec 9, 2009 at 7:29 AM UTC
Riding the hills
Wonder of reflected light
Shine on those
Dear near and far
Fast under the same spell
Momentarily struck
Out of the present
Into past’s stillness
Once on a summer’s night
Clouds – like
Grey cut-outs
Held in the trembling hand
Of a paper puppeteer -
Moved left to right
Across a proscenium of sky
The stage winged by trees
An old mill a backcloth
Of chimneys and angled roofs
The narrow bridge
Its river breathing
In a pit of darkness
The set on which our actors stand
In the space between heartbeats
The spirits of Basil and Peggy
Catch the silver orb
As it flies behind the clouds
And just like that falling star
Place it deep
In a pocket
Never to let it go
Never
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 1:29 AM UTC