07 November 2005

As part of a very tentative move towards seeking publication, I’ve begun to group various poems together.  These are the various poems about Reuben & Rosie, written during the past three years.     BIRTHQUAKE   He is hypothesis, an act of faith, a theory. He’s rumour without a name.  What’s the evidence? Radar graffiti – a splash of chalk dust in the dark. “Look, you can see his hand!” No, it’s just a phantom caught on polaroid, foam blown off water, cuckoospit, thistledown.   And yet we watch, the two of us, solemnly, breathing through our mouths, seismologists on stakeout, waiting for the independent pulse. And there, and there again: a ripple in the skin, miniature techtonics; something stirring at the core.  He is on his way from a dark place to break the surface of the world.     ON BRIGHTON BEACH   We took you to the edge of the sea, to tug your anchor, stretch your world.  We knew the sea’s edge and beyond. We had ridden it hard through years,   reached landfall on its horses, vaulted from their rolling backs onto stones, afraid but laughing. We’d heard the voice in its throat   and tried to listen the long vowels into meaning.  But it’s a language lost to us, broken into spume and spray, salt dust that falls away ashore.   You watched those horses reining in, your blue scrutiny solemn. And, as they turned and rode away again, Canute without a care, you turned,   and stamped up the shingle, lay down and curled into sleep to dream in a heartbeat the slow chant of the tide, its wordless lullaby.   ......................................................     NO HORIZONS   I covet your knee-high world, down there inside   the reek of ragwort and fennel; where fugitive cornstalks rattle and scrape   and surgeon grass cuts clean. You know the names of nothing and are   fearless, keeping company with forgotten denizens in wings and armour.   You drink the cuckoospit and breathe the ashen dust. For you there are no horizons;   there is no curvature to bring you back to where you started from.   ............................................     ROSIE SLEEPING   Your soft clock scatters seconds like peas on a drum.   A feather pulse stutters in your neck.  Your bird-   breath barely lifts the cotton strand across your lips.    But, as I turn away, a breeze that has yet   to blow touches your cheek and you smile, lopsided,   arch, and life rehearses in your unaccommodated face 10:18:03 PM    Mmm? []

© Copyright 2005 Dick Jones. Last update: 02/12/2005; 23:05:33.