Walking with James Schuyler
We walk. Last
light on
the grass
where graves
should be. Rain
will not follow
us. We buy
flowers and
a bottle
with bubbles. Now
it is one hour
later. Out
the window
all light
has gone
the stars too.
The wind
does not speak.
Curious.
The Skeleton Forest
for Mstyslav Chernov
The silent ash of trees against an untroubled sky
soil leaps from solid hold, a dark dance of mud
that might take a limb to accompany its deafening tune
soldiers burrow in the sight of death
their roar of bitch, motherfucker, cocksucker
a furied taunt to fear a modern prayer to departing
gods, who have leased their land to missile & drone
the light burns in built darkness, a cigarette rolled
in meditative hands, hangs on lips which have learnt
worry, green eyes, gentle watery, lost, set on a future
he will not have, the well turned sour
what will she fetch to slake a grandchild’s thirst
a mother’s scorn falls on“Heroes don’t die.”
as she shakes the ache from bent knee, tearful
supplicant to a dead son still beneath the yellow
& blue silk, a fragile thing, a cri de coeur to cradle
the corpses & fire hearts to clamber over what was
to plant this flag in places that have nothing but a name
what does it mean to watch another die, before the flame
they name their dead, soldering their strength to the fallen
ringing out the present absence of their battle brothers
Variah Tym Belka Malya Kuzia Marcella
Jamaica Casanova Foma Sahan Kottabych Hrom
Guyz Yar Shaktar Kavun Snieh Gagarin
Murmur
He hunts the breath
beneath the rock
the blasted walls
the sharp glass
nothing to see
in tortured wire
he lays his ear
to rubbles ridges
dust coating lobe
as he quietens
aggrieved heart
to listen for life
the chosen ones
paint the concrete
crimson and lay it
upon charred limbs
who have lost
innocent body
he longs for a machine
to detect hope
to rescue his fingernails
from senseless scrabbling
to find the friend
who lies beneath
Ariadne sings the blues
It’s the same old bull sold as some sort of
mythic unravelling out of the blue, a memory
constructed, no gentle holding of slippery truth
beauty rises from the maze of imperfections
only a god can spy and celebrate
her desire to escape for distant fervent swell
a putting together beyond a metropolis marked out by men
vibrating with robotic aspiration which cannot lift
feathered love into flights of solitary delight
her face forged beyond the labyrinth
beyond the blood triumphant hands of a hero
she plays her part, the body of desire unseen
loving wife tragically abandoned, until ship’s wake
is water wiped, no macho splash
dampening her ardor for a life alone
write what you like of her - beached brooding bitter
from truth false notes are wrung, sung in melancholy strain
a roused smile turns her lips as husband disappears
Landscape
for Christopher Neve
The boulders can be measured not mastered
those arrogant hands of youth have softened
torn to tenderness in the wrestling of mass
rock and river have their own shape to shape him
knowing forms in knowing nothing just looking
letting the eye loose in sediment, soil, turbulent pull
roving in nature’s unfathomable stratagem, the surge
of matter beneath which he no longer suffers
his patient heart attends, the blood of light enters
*****
Simon Parker is a London based writer, performer and teacher. He is an associate artist of Vocal Point Theatre and runs creative writing and reading groups for the homeless and socially excluded at the 240 Project. Recent poems appear in Cleaver, MockingHeart Review, Prosetrics, The Crank, Cathexis NW, and The Pomegranate London.
