Silver leaves line
the road I travel through
Cherry blossom trees
Too fragile and fearful to bloom
Storm clouds gather ahead
and a crack of blue sky appears
The birds of the air feel its heaviness
And scatter as it nears
In this bleak city
We entertain thoughts of mortality
Misplaced and displaced
Spectators of our own calamity
Part one: The White Collar Parade
The smell of money on them
More pungent than liquor
Their suits, creaseless
Neatly folded like bank notes
from a robbery
An army of uniforms;
The white collar parade
Filtering in and out of
the cobbled chaos
I try to dodge them all
Bullet through the air
Without a care
A rainbow flash
In monochrome
~
Part two: The City that Coughs You up and Spits You out
Each day, I pass the homeless man by
Just one of many
In the city that coughs you up
And spits you out
Little does he know
I’ll be leaving this place for good
Packed up and fed up,
Dragging my career behind me
We exchanged a glance
But no words
His sky blue eyes looked up at mine;
Pained and questioning
I walked on, like I always do
Wondering who was feeling more sorry for who
In this world
our mortal chains wear us down
but could the greater heights of heaven
be shared with you now?
For on this earth,
a lovers’ paradise have we made and shared
but in the greater heights of heaven
could a non-believer be spared?
Bound by our coils
we would dance until Death’s delight
but would that final hour
extinguish our love’s last light?
Cast out to paradise alone
I would to God’s mercy entreat
to spare my lover’s unbelieving
that to our maker we both could meet
A single moment;
Captured and framed in time:
Your naked body
Propped against the pillow;
Head tilted with curiosity
To one side
Watching me
Gaze at you
from the doorway
As you captured my nakedness
With a fierce tenderness
That could calculate infinity
I thought then
and I still think now
That
Your lips’ red
was as delicate
and sweet
as roses
turned towards the sun
Oh how I came undone
when they planted soft,
wet kisses on my cheek
to the rhythm of each heartbeat
Time ticks;
A fragile and volatile bomb
You count the seconds pass
And wonder where they’ve gone
Meanwhile the distant and burning
Stars of outer space
Explode
Into particles of golden dust
Giving human life their trace
Stretched over a vast landscape
Of cells and membranes
The pain of birth contained you
Curled up in utero
But you broke forth too soon
Pale and premature
Watched by the expectant eyes
Of the hospital room
A small and tangled up
Bloodied ball of flesh
Craved the comfort
of womb and breast
Covering with baby hands
Its own eyes from the light
Sleep-full and yearning
To fight for its life
Home is to sleep
Next to the milk of your bones
My soul is quietened; I am no longer alone
Sheltering in the shadow of your embrace
My fingers trace
The graceful curve of your hips
And my tongue your lips
Take me in your hands and wash me
In the juice of our love
For I know you understand
Time stretches us out
Pale and uncertain
Bathing us in a pool of memory
To cleanse the stain of yesterday’s tomorrow
And all that became hollow
The faithful body
A mere capsule
Emptying and forgetting
The contents of life
From ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
Refusing to believe
There’s a God we trust
Until we recover our senses
Shake off Death’s dust
And be restored to former glory
Let this not be the end of our story
This poem is dedicated to the late Welsh poet Nigel Jenkins.
You wrote your Death
On the periphery of Life
Unknowing that Death writes itself
In leaves that are turned over and over,
Even the lucky-leaved clover
Planted face-first into the ground, soil-dwelling forever
In that eternal Autumn
Whose blood-red leaves never ceased to fall
Caught on the wind in flight
As Death catches us all
You chose to observe from such great heights
And we watched you look down from above
Your best lesson to us in life that
The next greatest to Death is Love
I imagined you
At the origin of the world
Watching and waiting with weary eyes
For your world to be changed
Boy of bloodied birth no longer
But man of womb and flesh revealed,
Did you cry and crumble
At the spot where Nature’s love was sealed?
As you gaze upon your own
Bloodiness, father of the child that you were
Picturing a new innocence
As Life seeps out in a blur…
She met with my future;
I met with her past
Wrapped in hopeful dreams
Now memories built to last
In the stitching of the seams
That binds us together
We walk a precious tightrope:
The time is now or never
To cross the bridges
Leading to a destiny unknown
The territory is far and wide
Yet still ours to roam
Before surrendering to sleep
Suddenly so evasive
Amidst a cold silence
That remains not comforting but abrasive
I wait to awaken in nightmares anew
Another future of formidable darkness
Where the only comfort I won and lost was you
Catherine Lucy Rowland 