POETRY

AT DUSK How to cope with landscape, paint everything as it comes, with willows cloud grass that withers, and the rosy jelly blood. How then to capture a beautiful landscape, sheaves of rye, the panic of the birds, the pale blue sky of September, and the cloud of dust from under the baseboard, the swarms of flies, their bright green, …

PERSPECTIVE FROM TWO POINTS Have crossed as strangers, without a word or a gesture, she directed to the store, he to his car. Perhaps you lost, or distracted, or forgetful that he had, for a brief moment, cherished forever. Besides, no guarantee that they would. Yes, perhaps, from a distance, but up close anything at all. I saw them from …

BACK OFTEN AND TAKE ME     Return often and take me. Back and get me, or feel loved, if the memory of the body awakens, and the old pang passes into the blood, then the lips and skin from rising, and yet it seems that the hands touch. Return often and take me at night, then the lips and …

WHEN YOU SET OUT FOR ITHACA When you set out for Ithaka, you hope your road is long, full of adventure, full of discovery. The Lestrigoni or Cyclops, the angry Neptune do not worry: it will not be this kind of meetings if your thoughts remain lofty, and a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Cyclops or Lestrigoni …

PRAYER Our baby’s heart, on the sixteen-week scan, was a fluttering bird, held in cupped hands. I thought of St Kevin, hands opened in prayer, and a bird of the hedgerow nesting there, and how he’d borne it, until the young had flown, and I prayed: this new heart must outlive my own. (Kathleen Jamie) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Findings-Kathleen-Jamie/dp/0954221745/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

AS THE MIST LEAVES NO SCAR On the dark green hill, So my body leaves no scar On you, nor ever will. When wind and hawk encounter, What remains to keep? So you and I encounter, Then turn, then fall to sleep. As many nights endure, without a moon or star. So will we endure, when one is gone and …

FANTASY Leave always wandering imagination, the pleasure is always somewhere else, and it melts, only to touch sweet, like the bubbles when rain hits. Let her then wander, her, the winged, for the thought that even in front of it lies. Opens the door to the cage of the mind, and you’ll see, it will launch flying into the sky. …

THE KING OF SNAKES I hear the sounds, the crash of the books closed shutter to dislodge the dust, steps on the floorboards creaking, the clicking of fingers keyboard sticky earl gray sweetened. (Joanna Wajs)

CLOTHING You take off, we take off, we remove coats, jackets, waistcoats, blouses of wool, cotton, terylene, skirts, pants, socks, underwear, laying, hanging, throwing on backs of chairs, doors screens. For now, he says the doctor, nothing serious; you put on, rest, take a trip, take the case, after lunch, in the evening; come back in three months, six a …

THE CURTAINS IN MY DRAMAS The curtains in my dramas do not rise and not fall, do not cover and do not show. They rust, rot, tear at the first screech of iron, according to the cloth, the third paper. They fall apart, over the heads of the spectators, the actors. The curtains in my dramas, hang on the scene, …