Maidaid Halcyon C 500

 

Sleek, grey, small

discreet, with its shh and no fuss;

on the signal performs

a tarantella so intense

it must be contained

in steel; the heat and pressure

such, that when the box is opened

steam escapes like a trapped beast

fleeing the scene:

glass, china, steel,

prepared for fresh butchery.

 

___________________________

 

 

The High Commissioner’s Wife

 

When we arrive, shaken,

Mrs Brown is stitching snippets of news

from murmurs on the radio.

 

Suddenly white noise turns

to screech, thump and someone

declares the station taken.

 

Mrs B stiffens, stands and turns it off; 

She offers something to drink.  Or,

it’s so hot, a shower perhaps?

 

Silhouettes slip through the window

as water cascades over white tiles and red

laterite streams from my skin back to Africa.

 

Through the thin walls, I hear knocking;

cover my nakedness and call out, Mrs Brown!

Mrs Brown! Someone’s at the door.

 

She says there’s no one.

She says it’s mortars and

shall we have tea

or something cold?

 

 

___________________________

 

 

One bird

 

There is no evidence

of animals here

except one bird

pipes music through

      tangled       leaves

past the bully wind

into this cell,

a     scurry        shadow.

 

Only the ear has it,

curling around the outer edges

of consciousness;

 

a mild tinnitus

hopping up and down

for attention.

 

When the wind

drops its grip

you can hear it, still

as a cornered mouse.

 

___________________________

 

 

The mouse:

 

a flicker dash

                     across the step;

 

cornered,

                 exposed,

 

unafraid;

 

eyes me

with a single

rain glazed berry

of black,

 

then zig

         zags away

    into

        the

night.

 

 

___________________________

 

 

Rhydymwyn Valley Works

 

Nothing exploded here but

in this valley of once toxic acres,

a drip crash-lands on a concrete floor,

loud as a bomb in the derelict space.

Ghosts insist this is still a place for secrets,

even now: no paper, no loose talk.

 

Sycamores joke with the wind, shake

fists of keys: nothing new to unlock.

An anxious pheasant tensions her legs

once, twice; uncertain, bungles take-off

in a fluster of khaki shades and shadows

of stories haunting these paths.

 

Autumn flames, tossed by the late sun

set a fuse the length of the valley; race

from white-gold leaf to scarlet berry,

White-letter Hairstreak, lizard, jay;

flash through broadleaf-trees and helleborine;

redeem, bless and cauterise the past.

 

___________________________

 

 

Hunting Books

 

My father and I didn’t talk much

simply because my father didn’t talk much

to anyone about anything other

than rods, flies and the wiles

of Brownies, Rainbows, Grayling

and Pike.  But on Fridays we’d go

hunting in the library; him and me,

stalking the shelves for one

that got away last time.

 

I remember how it was

like stepping into the Tardis,

the walls of our small-town

house of books, bursting at the seams

with shafts of light streaming from pages

as covers opened doors to other worlds,

and we’d be lost to each other,

on different quests, until we met up

light-years, continents, planets later,

to check out our treasures and

walk home side by side,

miles apart, dream companions,

our hunters’ bag between us.

 

___________________________

 

 

Woman Cursing the Moon

(After Miroslav Holub)

 

Someone

just climbed to the top of the hill

and started cursing the moon:

 

stupid moon, stupid fat-faced moon,

fatuous copy of a pregnant belly;

beachcomber mauling the tideline;

creeping ghost of a snail

obscuring the stars with its slimy trail;

anorexic cheese,

starving itself almost to death;

satellitic sychophant,

trying so hard to be pale and interesting;

trailing around after the sun, sucking in its stomach;

fiddling with the sea, interrogating caves

month after month;

insomniac, playing with itself;

 

moon, you barren dusty rock of a womb -

 

So for a while she cursed the moon,

which stroked her head

like an anxious mother.

 

Then she came down and threw

nettles, oat straw,  skullcap, hips

into the moony pond.

 

There you are, Moon, she said

and went on her way.

 

___________________________

 

 

What to do with a puffball

 

Kick it.

A flower?

Pick it.

Land?

Sell

(or buy) it.

Space?

conquer it.

Air?

Smoke it out.

Fish?

Fry it.

A bird?

Cage it.

People?

Beat them.

Water?

Piss in it.

A box?

Open it.

A white page?

Write on it.

 

___________________________

 

 

Spirit of Bird

 

I am everywoman’s

adaptable blue jay,

I know the proper use of power.

I am mystic crow, affectionate duck,

a shaft of eagles, score of finches,

I am the questing goose, the sacred grouse.

 

I have a heron’s balance,

the tireless joy of hummingbirds,

the proper intelligence of magpies,

the lucid dreams of penguins.

I have the common nobility of a sparrow.

 

I can spot danger like a quail,

shift shapes, and like the raven,

play with wind.  I have

the swallow’s proper perspective,

a vulture’s renewed vision,

the boldness of a wren.

 

I am your salve and invocation,

the grit in your crop,

your quill.

 

(Native American bird meanings from All Nations Trading: North Carolina)

 

___________________________

 

Beach rose

 

Rosa rugosa

too sweet to forget; the days

held fast in salt spray.

 

___________________________

 

Carefree

 

Down the corridor a shriek

of laughter echoes: bloody

bloody, bloody, bloody,

 

bloody hell, Dolly! You’re a case,

and no mistake.  Give us a kiss.

Come here and let me love ya.

 

I can smell urine and lilies.

Clouds snag on Brynhyfryd: Beautiful Hill,

I don’t want to turn from the window,

 

but a cough’s scrambling around

among the ashes in her throat. 

I want to get out before

 

she says get me a cuppa love,

find me a clean vest.

I watch her hands flutter up

 

from their weak purchase on the blanket,

they fall back like spent birds and

I wish they could fly again.