Progress

Anachronistic embolism

     in the eyes of

           all the blind.

We hold the times

           unkind.

Rich nostalgic symbolism

      in the sighs of

            all the dead.

We hold the words

            unsaid.

Wet Bird

Hail, fair robin - we are gladly met

though your feather-clothes are sopping wet

from all this rain that is falling yet -

so hurry along to home.

Why stand you there with curious eye

getting pelted with water, refusing to fly?

Must you wait until your wings are dry

before you hurry along to home?

No, you can't come with me inside

although the door is open wide.

I care not how much you chide

this is not your home.

Now the rain has stopped, or can't you see?

You can therefore lay off staring at me.

Shake the water from your wings and be

hurrying along to home.

I suppose

I suppose that someday

it will come to pass

that even sunlight

will be considered crass.

"Because," they will moan,

"it is much too bright

and we are rather

content with night."

Elsie Hawkins

Elsie was a little girl who happened to grow old.

Her pale blue eyes retained the same sparkle

they had when, back in her school-days in Wiltfordshire,

she would chase the boys over some feigned outrage

and, upon catching them, would kiss them until they turned crimson.

The wrinkles that now covered her face would pose a difficulty

to all but the most astute cartographer.

They had a tendency to become little overflowing river valleys

when, upon her hearing old Billy Cotton songs on the phonograph,

her eyes would release quiet tears over remembered joys.

When approached by her little great-grandchildren,

she would smile a summer’s worth of sunshine

and clasp each one around the face with her crooked hands.

Nearly singing she would say: “Oh Robert [or Sara or Peter or Caroline],

Granny Elsie loves you so so much!”

She would hug them each until they started to squirm

and then bequeath a peppermint a piece

before they all tumbled away laughing.

She would gaze off in their direction with a lingering smile

long after they had disappeared elsewhere in the house.

beautiful and bittersweet

beautiful and bittersweet

good folk I will never meet

passing by me in the street

at the brightness of high noon

such good fortune slipped away

the sun set on another day

no gilded hope could make it stay

at the brightness of high noon

head on pillow in the night

blankets wrapped around me tight

in dreams I walk in golden light

at the brightness of high noon

Alexey Leonov

Cosmonaut buoyant
in the womb of space,
caressed by darkness
and warm solar kisses,
tethered to his Voskhod,
the most attentive of mothers,
while the luminous world below
throbs with life and awaits,
with gentle and open arms,
the newborn child.

When first we met

[From The Recollections of John William Llewellyn, c. 1933]

When first we met, you were selling
bunches of wildflowers along
the dusty Manchester Road. I felt
something akin to sanctifying grace
in the bright felicity of your smile.
You and your little sisters were asking
a ha'penny for your bouquets, and when
I placed five pence in your pretty hand,
you drew a quick breath and looked at me
with confused delight. The giggles of your sisters
as they passed around the coins was like
a tree full of sparrows in the dewy morning.
You thanked me more with your eyes than with
your whispered words. You then looked down
at your boots which were stirring the dust.
Your mother called from down the way
and laughing you all hurried, hand in hand
and with white dresses fluttering, to show
her your small fortune. You waved back to me
and smiled. Tipping my hat, I resumed
my own travel, carrying away the little bunch
of daisies and bluebells, cowslips
and cornflowers, tied up with a green ribbon,
that is still sitting here on my bureau-table
these twenty-five weary years later.

Fossils

Many of the older graves here

are marked with serene

and stone-winged maidens

who gaze out upon springtime

swelling in the great Necropolis,

lovely fossilized Muses

who, though grimly mute,

never fail to inspire.

cab ride in the rain

a brilliant and teary-eyed

mingling of passing city lights

shimmers in muted shifting auras

through the backseat passenger windows,

where blurry buildings weep together

and streaks of watery crimson-flames

meet sleepy cerulean waterfalls

that slip across crystalline lenses
to escape the bleary neon night