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

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

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)