TWITTEN (a post-election daydream)

 

Scarcely more than shoulder breadth,

you cannot see the opening

from this year’s end.

Two sides obstruct the solstice light:

no shadows dance

or – in its gloomy closing – slink

like alley cat round beer cans.

 

Walls so tall they seem to lean in.

Ivy overspills their coping,

reaches fingers down.

I approach our lengthening days

between brick piers;

but find each minute, newly lit,

is – by shallow angles – blinded.

 

There’s more time now, though less to say.

Listening for tongues, we hear only

three-word echoes.

How far this passage goes rests on

choice of measure:

careless whether yards or metres,

lichen clings in fractured mortar.

i. 2020

 

Highly Commended, Sussex Together Festival Oct.2020

STAYING POWER

Within our walls this talisman grows old.

In the north-east corner, where demons loom,

it seeks chill time enough to later bloom:

such hours are fewer now and not as cold.

Each year the snowy corymbs soon unfold.

Then on pruned limbs a glossy crown makes room,

where fruit must strive to swell, not be assumed –

for heart rot saps the trunk, its bark shot-holed.

 

When loading grows too great, some must descend

unformed, like once good Christians fallen.

For while love’s tears get harder to requite

midwinter – from June on - draws in the light.

What pears remain wait patiently to ripen;

those dropped are best forgotten, odds and ends.

  

  

vi - viii. 2019