Kindling

The night’s a hearth,

the Moon its fire, and we,

poor feral creatures,

merely kindling.

Mysterious Light

The inevitable tumbling of

Earth and Moon sometimes

involves us in

mysterious light

Doors

My life seems full of doors:

some open, what’s beyond them

done, wanting me to stay;

some ajar, tempting, though I

know behind some lies mischief;

some are firmly closed, locked and

loaded with possibilities and dread,

leaking strange scents

 

These I sometimes attempt to open:

try all those odd spare keys, get my

screwdriver out, though I

draw the line at jemmies,

hammers or hatchets, since I would

rather be locked out than

force a door I wished I had

never opened.

 

Juliet’s Balcony

Coming through London

I pass those half a

million pound flats with their

Juliet balconies so

beloved of architects

crammed with suitcases,

laundry, bicycles, kids’ toys,

unopened (unopenable) boxes,

rows of ironed shirts

awaiting another

ironed day,

garden furniture with no

prospect of a garden, indeed

no room for a

Juliet to shriek her love

lost in the roar of

London’s traffic from this

ruinously expensive but

well-placed favela.

Early Music VIII: Staves

Allemande La Verneüil (François Couperin, Dix-huitième Ordre)

 

Falls can be vertiginous and

I can feel her fall through the

bars of your music

her hands grasping at

quavers and minims

unsure how far she will

fall but somehow

keeping her proud head up

despite the battering of the

staves.