© Nigel Holt
Sisyphus at St Anne’s
The sand that trails from the fist
of this chill February wind
collects in slant cones and wedges,
wreaths the foot of the memorial
plinth,
drifts up the drives of hotels;
a soft wind-sifted plume
combs through the crocus
and sidles slyly into town.
I watch him sweep his pile,
try to imagine him happy,
but his cheeks are pinched with cold
and his mouth masked by a club scarf.
The wind plucks at his yellow jacket,
tugs at his trousers.
He reaches for a shovel,
his wind-bleared eyes
blind to the flats of sand beyond the
dunes,
to the grey sheen of the distant sea;
blind to the dull metal of the sky
and the snow-pecked Cumbrian fells;
blind to the imps that stream
from the peak of his pile
and tease away, over his boot
and back along the promenade.
©
Arthur Seeley
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The alen is a measure
equivalent to the step
of a small child.
A small child king,
probably. It is much less
than the distance between
the end of a rainbow
and the chance of an even break.
When the snow comes
it is not divisive, although
each crystal is unique.
Some say every snowflake dreams that,
at a depth of one alen beneath
some ice-cream drift,
it has a twin.
We
are a nation too, we small,
one alen long beneath a blanket of snow.
© Peter Stewart Richards
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Jar
(…..as a Chinese jar
still
Moves
perpetually in its stillness. - Burnt Norton: T S
Eliot)
After an early lunch,
an afternoon in the gallery,
quiet as the settle of
dust.
I followed the
zig-zag,
moved from booth
to
booth,
isolated from the last,
insulated from the
next.
My companion, a potter,
held that immortality
lay
in my ashes used as
glaze;
a
concession
had won him half at
least
of such remains.
He dawdled in his own world
of flung clay, kilns
and the resolution
of form and function.
So, alone, I moved ahead.
A tall Tang
jar,
undecorated but
imperious;
gave me leave to
enter.
The silence within
silence,
affirmed the possibilities of
perpetuity,
taught me, too, its
stillness
through the blur of
centuries;
and
tolerance
for intrusions upon its count.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gone
I thought I would be
a better ghost, score
high marks scaring folks
from attics or small houses.
What a surprise to be a flop
at the simple haunt.
Forget about the wails,
I can't even whisper.
Of course, hearing is a tricky
thing
now
that I'm a spirit;
the sound waves don't work.
Mouths of the solid ones flap,
silence just floats out.
I've tried to rattle chains,
break glass, but I really do move
through most things.
My single joy the wood
within thick doors.
The dense grain itch
from a tree's split rings
my only sensation.
Maybe it's the passing.
Junior High
Okay to Be a Bad Dancer
Love in the Times of Invisibility
He is her secret. How could she explain
falling for hands that exist outside reality,
a voice speaking only in her head,
butterflies stirred up by nothing but words.
She's been called crazy too many times.
Every day, every night he claims her
with a new name: Violet, Hazel, Tamara –
each one unlikely as a miracle, and she
has yet to say, yes, that's who I am:
seven letters, nothing to hide. See—
She turns up her palms.
But he reveals her all the time:
she's an onion, tender layers exposed;
a russian doll, limbs aching
with the absence of his touch.
All she knows of him is his smile
stretching across 800 pixels on her screen.
She spends hours in search of this mouth,
face after face disappointing her
on crowded winter streets.
Somewhere, wrapped in smoke,
he writes stories that make her come
on moonless nights, when there are no shadows
to weep with her, only stars echoing
the choked mantra of his name.
© Ciarán Parkes
Hope
A quiet evening in our sitting
room:
She's crouched beneath a copy of a
Goya
with iPod and the latest by La
Toya.
I sniff The Western Canon's withering
bloom.
I've not been struck by old-age
paranoia
as yet. No way: I still like playing
Tomb
Raider. In a death-match game of Doom
I kick more ass than Oscar de la
Hoya.
Yet she—she never contemplates what youth
is.
Why should she bother, when she's point-blank in
it?
Her world's a roundabout. The spinning truth
is
that she's the center of it every
minute.
And I, her father, like a
gyroscope,
will balance out the drifts to come—I hope.