Poem for Thursday...dVerse ...mix and match

I'm taking as my prompt...

...Beautiful Solitude ...I don't want to miss the second birthday celebration of dVerse...so I spent a few hours down the field in my quiet place taking in the "soul-touchers" around me.

I think that this needs quite a bit of rewriting...but here are the bare bones of my contribution for the party....thankyou Tony Maude for the thoughts!!

Swing thoughts

The evening sky

Creams

Down on the horizon line

And an eastern breeze

Chants in the labyrinth grasses

Young swallows

Lower their standards

And scream down the air

For late…late insects

Give me your virgin fly past

And while my soul cries stay

Stay

And fill the gap

Winter is coming and

I may live in this town

But I don’t belong here.

...so this is for dVerse Poets Pub ..."mix and match"and a very happy birthday to all those lovely poets who contribute and give me so much reading pleasure.

A Poem for Thursday..."The Visitors."

Visitors arrive
with bundles full of home.
house coat
new slippers
bag of apples
favourite newspaper.

Professionals stand
stoically
at their desks.
silently
walk the path
between
the healthy
the sick
the dying.

A grey skull
open mouthed
coughs harshly
alone.
too many beds... to pay attention to one cough.

Drawers are labelled
technical
medical
warfarin
arrest situation
body chart.

All life is here
and..not.
more handwashing takes place
than Pilate
ever thought necessary.
With empty relatives
sitting in
grey cafes
drinking grey tea.
and waiting
for the results of loved ones.

This is Kierkegaard's observation....
that life is a reality to be
experienced
not a problem
to solve
and all existence
is beset
with paradox and riddle.

(this is written with Louis MacNiece in mind...I love his thoughts and was taught and studied him when living in Belfast....he lived close to the city... The one especially in mind .."I am not yet born"...) I hope I've managed the link this time Brian!!

dVerse

~ Poets Pub

 

 

The Painter

This is for dVerse Poets Pub.

I put it up as a post last year under my "A poem for Thursday" slot and I thought it might resonate with some of the other poems this week.

The blue sky,

  

and a lazy gull,

                

and the shouting laughter

                   

 of young men playing football.

and high in the sky

the boys float and flutter

on warm thermals.

birch leaves whisper 

and turn themselves over

to show pure silver

-rising in price -

they say. 

.

Stelios gives me a fly past

on his way back from those triangular mountains.

and the wood pigeon

moans gently in the tall pine tree.

on the day

the painter died.

[The painter and the painting of course...Lucien Freud

and the boys are the screaming gang of swallows over the field].