Memento

Our father

entertained us

in graveyards;

Sunday morning-

the vaults of the rich.

Squat granite blockhouses

ranked along the sidewall.

Multiple skins of green paint

over amorphous coats of arms.

Receding tracery of light

through the grilles;

the particular beauty of dust,

lit by stained glass,

over the cryptic slump

of  leaden caskets.

Two small boys wide eyed

at a vase of sear flowers

unexplained.

 

The Falconer’s Daughter at Twenty 

Fly now

my youngest eyass,

no longer bejessed.

No tinkling bell

will find you;

gone the leash,

no creance even

for  longer

hold.

Now grown

full summed,

unhooded

I trust you skywards,

in yarak,

to take the air.

 

For all those who wait for loved ones to die

who pace the sea-green corridor

who wonder at the weight of time

who tread it like deep water

this why-ing time.

carry the weight of the room,

keep backs to time, friction feet

against the pull of marmoleum

this wall-beating time.

with every pick of cover mapped and tile edge travelled

live in the pre-grave time

and wait for dark to pierce through

this carapace time.

—–

We witness

just the

being.

Watch.

Sit, hear and nod

thumb stroke the thin envelope

smooth the counterpane

and wait

wait

wait

wait

and pray your waning body boxed

and wait

for swingeing time

to have its moment

for the tipover

into only yesterdays of you.

go pace that sea-green corridor

and wonder at the weight of time

go tread it like deep water

 

Elephants

Although I am here and you are there

and the ground between us gets,

more and more rocky,

right here, right now,

the elephant

is not sitting in the room;

it is outside

fully tackled

to cross the Alps

and I am Hannibal

astride it.

 

Trajectory

Mr Hennessy was in full

flight in double Friday maths

and his uniform line of ‘this’ll be useful

when you are on the buildings in Frankfurt’

was still hanging in the air when a green finned dart thudded into his sum

he looked at it for the time it took

his Adam’s apple to rise and fall

then his arm took off like some

elegant bird into his calculation.

 

---

Trajectory won 2nd place in Magma Editors choice awards 2015/16

 

Paul Bregazzi