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NEW WORK

the bonfire

I have idled away the summer

growing fat and awkward.

Wilted garlands of gladioli

and rotting stocks

have thatched a damp lid on my head;

August’s excreta is piled here.

The children don’t come near me;

if the wind is right, there is a faint stink.

But one day,

the flame will come

to set my soul on fire

and cream smoke will billow

like a temple offering.

Deep within white heat will churn

sparks will fly

and I will be alive once more,

one more time

until nothing,

as if I never was

as if I had never even been.

pine tree in the building site

 

Late, afternoon; gauze of blue catches

heavy thatch of Scots pine, green and sharp feathered.

Far below its stately sight, rag of frayed root

unearthed, up-ended, left, forgotten here

in the shadowed site. Digger tracks, muddy ruts,

trenches gape, baring clay teeth,

a rash of signs shout their hazards on the gate.

 

Stirrings of yellow warmth lift then settle the cones

that nest precariously.

The bubble and chatchatchat of birds,

the sweet sip and click of song swells the evening

and clouds the pine in ancient sound.

Morning will bring a different rhythm

and jar the air with wrench and clang and jud

of metal fist

and this pine will stand it all the more.

teenage dreams on the funicular

 

Evening seeps in like blood on a pillow

grey, pebble-dashed, slashes of green and carbon brown.

Street lights come on

allatonce

a                                           string                                  of                          bobbing                              yellow

lamppost to lamppost

across the river squares of white shut off by curtains drawn

and the shape of supper being made.

Your perfume, paper-thin on the winter air

and the Severn

                                  winding its dank

                                                      burrow into

                                          the night.

A black crow, hardly there at all, pulls at something fleshy in the gutter,

flaps like rust from the creak and rattle of the last carriage

descending

                    to

                        ‘Low

                                Town’.

A screeching clank somewhere below.   

This is the first handrail, beginning the awkward ascent

coiling up and up to some grey-haired future.

I grew-up here, spent my Friday nights here,

dormant.

the bat


Between light and dark
a shading
that turns from silver to deepest indigo
Hangs over the dome.
The fir tree, tall and drooping heavy arms
is pure black night against his blue.
Into the scene he comes.
Small, insignificant, hidden by day
In deeply webbed rafters
or curling bows of wrinkled bark;
A world on its head:
neatly clipped green sky,
foxgloves and flag iris
that hang like stalactites.
His moment,
lit up by a clutch of tentative stars;
he makes his entrance
on the finest of wings,
a sci-Fi skin stretching from fingertip to heel,
appearing from the wings,
disappearing into the auditorium of twilight,
darting up to the gloaming of the gods.
We watch from inside,
the lamps off, windows open to the dusk,
searching his speed
straining to see,
straining to just make out his shape

in the near darkness.

© 2018 by David E Anson. Proudly created with Wix.com

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