Stay in the loop and register for email updates about events, competitions and all things poetry.
sign me up
Stay in the loop and register for email updates about events, competitions and all things poetry.
Between crows at dawn
barking the latest news
of their Shogun ancestors
and sparrows at dusk
debating the meaning
of a fragile economy,
the International garden
discovers a stillness
absolute as brushwork.
Slow carp might stir
the long lily roots
with their silk kimonos,
clouds will definitely
drag the odd shadow
across duckweed lawns,
but the one real event
will be my decision
to lift a red leaf
from the fang of rock
overhanging this pool,
and so free the current
to fall to earth
which will never again
be one and the same.
From Poetry London 61 (Autumn 2008)
Wild with sleep and sleeplessness
I kept losing tables, cities,
trees, churches, palaces, entire countries
Where was Egypt?
How could I have misplaced Poland?
When there was only one table left in the world,
breakfast tried to cheer everyone up –
I lost autumn,
ageless autumn, mislaid winter,
all summer I searched for spring
I stole some shadows from my one remaining forest,
some rain from El Nino
I’d appreciate your help
in snatching an hour of lost light back from the moon and stars,
but I guess that’s not going happen
in my lifetime
So much time has passed. Snow-
flakes fall round lit street lamps.
They’re falling in Glasgow
in 1948.
They’re falling in Norway
in 2004.
Would it be good for me
not to say “so much time”?
Would it be better if
I could say “I’m alive
in 1948
and I remember snow-
flakes falling round street lamps
when I was very young
in 2004”?
Facebook
Twitter