good poems

Foolish to be envious
when a gull hovers
overhead,
or skims across
wild, white horses.

Maybe celebrate
the breathlessness of wings
as you travel transatlantic,
a white Greenland under your lap.

Or when that owl
swoops through night sky
so that a mouse will die
remember the placid

wings of chickens,
trammelled, marinated,
wrapped tight,
in a local deli.

Choose whatever wildness you will
but first read the planet,
word by splintered word,
those fish pooling

in the rocks
where children play,
the tiger tracked down
and mauled by men.

At the close of day
see if your own numb skin,
is any match
for the cosmos,

its bewitching idiocies,
packed continents
where dinosaurs once wandered,
footprints too tiny
to discern.

Dance pursues her.
Those neat feet
giggle.

Her toes hunt
new ground
in a ballet pirouette.

She taps life
into pavements,
colours the sun.

In her dream the long arm
of the jungle
is shaking her free

of trees.

Beyond the ivy-clung forest stones
her hermit’s hearth does glow
with the scent of wild herbs
and other hedgerow matter.
‘Tis bottling night again,
the ladle is overemployed,
with the rhythm of eye measurements,
dipping and diving with the flow.
Simmering time’s for ladder knotting,
whittling worms out of the soul.
Busy yet still slipping backwards,
onion rolling in your wake,
time and distance are comfort’s friends
but seldom get down to the root.
Rubbing fern juice into her hair
with nimble fingers quick and true.
Frowning, she bobs and weaves
all ’round the magnetic target
which she cannot view remove.

More at http://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/.

The violence is happening
the way crackers pose as
bombs, is sign of one more
war– on streets, in restaurants and show rooms.
Even mannequins are not safe.
Pose as one
but be sure that violence
is not averted.

Trees spell doom.
The skies are unearthly
gawkish desires are truth
and away from their circumference
hovers the ghost.

and then
come over the sound
wash all around
your face
your head
your space
around the main delivery
of materiel
and love

take me
in

out

take me
a trout

to your storm

where we embraced

More at http://www.robindunn.com.

You call to me
I call to you
Welcome to the tree
You say you love me
In your primitive way
But I am not so sure
I believe that look
In your eye, it’s all
A show for others
Listening to our stir.

Strangers
Lives intersect
Testimony
Deliberation
Conflict
Agreement
Verdict
Dismissed
Never see those people again
Slice of life civic responsibility
Part of our system
Exit

Might say I’m
a night animal,
might say I’m
happier in the dark,
might say I can’t
see in front
of my own face,
stumbling, tripping,
injured somewhere.

In between
the hyphen
two words
feather peacocks
wrestle in raucousness
laughter, banter
Language is enormity
mystery, apostrophe
and, hyphenated words
loosely orchestrate meaning.

“A lot of people would see this and rightly panic
and advise you to try and avoid this darkness
and treachery which is approaching.
Firstly, you won’t because you always
face everything head on anyway.
Secondly, you can’t, I have already looked
and there is no way around it but through it
but I think you know this, almost as a sixth sense.
I believe you chose this because it’ll wipe the slate clean.
I wouldn’t like to go through it personally
but then again, I am not you am I.
It will change you for the better,
your enemies unwittingly fuel your metamorphosis
in a positive way, they’re unconsciously helping you.
There are bigger things at play here,
it would break most people
yet you will come through it shining and triumphant,
stronger and far wiser than before.
Your sensitivity, compassion and empathy will be reigned
and you will no longer feel lost
for you will know yourself completely through and through.
But you know this anyway, you’re cleverer than you let on,
you flit in and out when you are alone, from this side to the next
and there is a chain of lives behind you,
each as powerful as thunder
and as remarkable as that mischievous twinkle in your eye!”

More at http://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/.