Intruder
Silently padding across the dew-wet lawn
slipping from shadow to shadow in the
cloud-filtered moonlight.
Check this window...and the next...but to no avail...
then...Yes!...one is slightly ajar.
Fluid, lithe movement eases a body through into the dark room.
No sound, bar the muffled thud onto the carpet
then, room by unlit room, stealthily
seeking...seeking...
until slowly, and oh so gently, claiming the coveted goal.
Ah, so much better than outside on the mat...
and why shouldn’t there be room on the bed -
for the cat?
© Pete Stratford 19.4.10
Friday, April 30, 2010
Europa Poets' Gazette No 73
Hawthorn
Parade grounds square and bare
Spirits in shock still
Hang in the mist.
Boundaries of dried blood
Thick and hanging over
Puttees strewn along,
Bayoneted on thorny swords
Arranged on bones and ribs
Heavy in the muddy verges
Snipers dripping old blood
Into the murky streams;
They say that many berries
Make a severe winter.
Those winters were savage.
© Patricia Turner 18.4.2010
Parade grounds square and bare
Spirits in shock still
Hang in the mist.
Boundaries of dried blood
Thick and hanging over
Puttees strewn along,
Bayoneted on thorny swords
Arranged on bones and ribs
Heavy in the muddy verges
Snipers dripping old blood
Into the murky streams;
They say that many berries
Make a severe winter.
Those winters were savage.
© Patricia Turner 18.4.2010
Europa Poets' Gazette No 73
Feature Poet
You’re Allowed To Cry
In the stone gardens of grief, there is no hierarchy.
The dramas and deaths of
the famous, rich and royal
are paraded before us, media mounted on
Wagnerian structures of lamentation,
demanding we gaze on in awe,
reverential lumps in our throats,
giving them more sway
than the muted wails of
the eight-year-old hiding down on a tangled secret path,
fleeing the treachery and scorn of her best friend.
I take your tears, my little one, from this dark garden
and lay them, with blossoms and candles,
on a more public stage for
how else can new best friends find you?
To the child who didn’t get a lollipop,
to the woman lifting her road-broken cat,
to the girl whose phone didn’t ring,
to the youth slow-slouching alone on the
early Sunday morning pavements,
to the couple burying the old dog
in the garden,
I say,
let your tears flow along with
those from the war zone,
those from the screwed-up protection order,
those from the mother of the child in the burning house,
those from the prisoner hearing the footsteps,
You are allowed to cry,
For in the stone gardens of grief,
there is no hierarchy.
© Tim Heath
You’re Allowed To Cry
In the stone gardens of grief, there is no hierarchy.
The dramas and deaths of
the famous, rich and royal
are paraded before us, media mounted on
Wagnerian structures of lamentation,
demanding we gaze on in awe,
reverential lumps in our throats,
giving them more sway
than the muted wails of
the eight-year-old hiding down on a tangled secret path,
fleeing the treachery and scorn of her best friend.
I take your tears, my little one, from this dark garden
and lay them, with blossoms and candles,
on a more public stage for
how else can new best friends find you?
To the child who didn’t get a lollipop,
to the woman lifting her road-broken cat,
to the girl whose phone didn’t ring,
to the youth slow-slouching alone on the
early Sunday morning pavements,
to the couple burying the old dog
in the garden,
I say,
let your tears flow along with
those from the war zone,
those from the screwed-up protection order,
those from the mother of the child in the burning house,
those from the prisoner hearing the footsteps,
You are allowed to cry,
For in the stone gardens of grief,
there is no hierarchy.
© Tim Heath
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