Poetry Archives | Page 4 of 8 | Giramondo Publishing

The frost in a diamond remembers / the spiralling porcupine spines / of a snowstorm falling at me…

the thunder like a low surf / hunches over the roof / on haunches, / like a storm man with his arms around a child.

After a decade of absence it’s the crumbling / facades that strike me – chunks of paint split off / like states on the map of former Yugoslavia. / In the tenement flats everyone is spring cleaning – / tapestries, quilts, rugs, expel the odours of winter months.

and finds himself yet again / at some river’s edge, not knowing / what has happened in between / only that the moon has risen / water lapping at his knees.

I’ve left all my belongings, all that resembles me behind: / the cat’s needy meow, your callused grip on my hand; / I’ve left the blocked pipe, the poinciana in the yard / whose roots threaten like the unspoken between us.

A thousand dormant thoughts, chrysalids of gloom, / softly stirring in the shadowy room

Outside, a red balloon and a white, / let up into the crown of the end umbrella, / are kissing the canvas, / philosophers latched to Being.

evan plays guitar as if / he wants to be wrapped up in bed / it’s nice it’s plaintive then solid / with pitch perfect distortion the / girl you’re pressed close to hums / to the knowledge & it rains…

Stiff or sinuously, those roots of stumps, piled up, are warriors’ spokes

“if only the smell, the clashing trains would leave, but trade’s robust and kisses sweet where love swans past fresh walls, beneath new pines”

Feathering a white thread Through phantasmal waters Your boat leaves me small In dawn’s first light.

with a mortar and pestle into stuff almost as stiff as his great aunt’s bustle

she favoured a mare that was an easy doer and could be turned out without being coddled.

Conjoined in death as in birth, Chang and Eng are still dancing cheek to cheek

I had qualms also as to whether to write about the indignities of Robert’s failing body and mind when he had always been so fastidious about his presentation to the world. But then I thought, ‘This is life – it’s tough.’ Robert had no such qualms when writing poems about his parents, and, to me, they’re his most emotional and moving works.

It’s as though / she is being sucked out of existence sideways through a porthole / and we’ve got hold of her feet. / She’s very calm. / If you live long enough it isn’t death you fear / but what life can still do.

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Cave

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Sapientia Lacrimae

The Hands That Burned

The Gatekeeper’s Wife

A Quickie

Horse Carpaccio

At the Grave of Chang
and Eng

On ‘The Dying Light’ by Robert Gray

The Dying Light