FAILING FIRE

In these soft, grey, collapsing January days

where dawn and dusk meet on main street at noon

too weak, too low to draw their weapons

and life seeps away

like air from a pricked balloon,

the fire fails:

faint flames lick the edges

of lime logs, traces of orange

in the colluding coals

There was a blaze here once,

not quite a furnace –

no iron forged, no tons of nails for tall

adventuring ships –

but enough to warm a visitor or two

You held out your hands sometimes and felt

some subtle change in temperature

Now I close one eye as I write:

mist spills uneasily out of my dreams,

dancing through my bones,

piercing or tickling my spirit

interrupting the invisible sun

while a cold wind across the cemetery

digs deeper

keeping the fire going

or putting it out

Failing Fire won the 2010 Norwich Writers’ Circle Open Poetry competition and appeared in the anthology with three other of my poems (and 66 by other people). It is available at www.norwichwriters.org.uk/poetry/anthology.htm

LOOKING FOR HEAVEN

One day in summer they closed all the roads

and started digging

They found my body in the end

unresurrected yet

between blue cypress and the yew

looking for heaven

lost in the shimmering, seductive heat

of marshes and lakes

the bites of intermittent insects

the snapping of distant turtles

and the invisibility of frogs

I am still here, unmoved, unmoving

among the poison ivy:

persistently alive

despite my advancing age

and tired organs

in no ordered state

between nebraska and the hudson moon

waiting for the roads to open

and the divine wail of the railroad

to be interpreted

as the warm wind rises

and tongues of fire descend

EARLY SNOW

Halfhearted flakes float down like a string

of objectors parachuted in

behind the lines:

conscientious but in love with the sun,

they would rather not be there

and intend to slip away quietly

under cover of day

Early Snow won the Minimalist  prize in the 40th Norwich Writers’ Circle Open Competition, which is open to anyone and attracted over 500 entries. The overall winner came from Northern Ireland.

BRITISH WINTER TIME

The sky draws a line under lifeless clouds

as if the day is over:

witch-green, layered time

stepping meanly backwards,

hiding the light

behind jailer voices

while meadowed horses wait to be released

and the promised hour is swallowed

by grey land – old hoofprints

heading plainly for the flood,

reeds bent endlessly in prayer

across a path too often travelled

into the northern mist

towards the december sea