An Online Resource for Writers and Readers of Poetry in and around the City of Canterbury canterbury-poets@hotmail.co.uk
Roger James
Goshawk
Six months, seminal
you spray out of the
clouds
anything in your path
a form of prey
But here above
Aynesford
one Sunday afternoon
still small
on a gauntlet
I
see
you swivel your head
through 360 degrees
and stare at the
sun
straight through
me.
Noah
Bright as
marbles
small eyes stared back at me
as I lashed walkways aboard
and
settled stalls against the storm
and afterwards, looking back over
the
old country
my memories echoing
over stone black waters
I never
imagined how
I would bring them all ashore
and how these elderly hands
would give birth one by one
to all we had
saved.
Mattie’s Birthday
I
strap twelve chambers of dynamite
on the washing line, dig a rocket in the
soil
secure pots in wooden posts
and garden the fireworks
I am
Mattie's magician.
I set the spell that dims the night sky
and spark the
ceremony
that startles the horses.
In the silence afterwards smoke
drifts over the house
and small faces look up at me.
I say, ‘I don't know
where it comes from,
this obsession with stars.’
You say, ‘Sit down,
you seem cold.’