POEMS FROM OUR DECEMBER 18 EDITION: by Pauline Drayson, Les Swain and Adam Taylor
TREES I love trees in winter Naked and stark against the sky Like Titanic etchings they stand Sentinel Their summer glory now gone Only outlines remain recognisable By encircling leaves They are resting in these days Drawing sustenance under a dull sky
TREES
I love trees in winter
Naked and stark against the sky
Like Titanic etchings they stand
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Sentinel
Their summer glory now gone
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Only outlines remain recognisable
By encircling leaves
They are resting in these days
Drawing sustenance under a dull sky
From time's deep roots
It is they who nurture us in cities
And shade our rural retreats for generations
It is their colours, the gold and green
That herald our seasons
A beauty we all can share
Do we remember to look up
And marvel at their magnificent frames? Perhaps
They, who hold our planet together
And breathe us through the night
Are life's survival.
We owe them life and dignity
We owe them love and care
For posterity.
pauline drayson
POND LIFE
Hands make circles,
caress the water,
he kicks against the pricks -
those land-bound woes.
As a child, swimming lessons a form of torture;
now, at home in municipool,
or outdoors in Highgate's soupy murk,
where monster pike reputedly lurk
and old sons greet 'another scorcher'.
He's heard London water is hard
(basins scaled, kettles furred)
but for once graceful, held aloft
in fluid amniotic-soft;
consciousness' deep end, recall the foetal,
skate surface waterboatman-style
- half in, half out like whirligig beetle.
LES SWAIN
Laycock Street, N1
LOCATION, LOCATION
The Messiah landed
at two am
local time
in a gilded chariot
flanked
by burning questions:
Is this the end of then?
The start of now?
The rebirth of wow?
Might Armageddon come soon?
Or Apocalypse later?
What of processions
and resurrections?
Will he reveal
a universal truth?
And where were you
when you first heard the news?
ADAM TAYLOR
(from 'God's face in your gazpacho', Adam Taylor's first collection of poems, published by Matador)
