All Poems

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3210

If I close my eyes now, I can still see themcanopied by the visor of my sunhat:three children islanded on a narrow rimof earth between the huge crack-willow thatthey squat before, hushed, poised to net a frog,and the pond the frog will jump to (it got away)a glass its dive will shatter

The Grey-Eyed King

© Anna Akhmatova

Hail! Hail to thee, o, immovable pain!

The young grey-eyed king had been yesterday slain.

The Tongue’s Allotment

© Reibetanz John

Stones from Ashbourn Churchyard

© Reibetanz John

Jesse Quantrill, MillerThe toll taken, the grist drest:Here the bran, the flour with Christ.

Squirrel

© Reibetanz John

All around him November rainhisses like a thousand snakes -- around himand on him and almost through him untilhe is little more than a knotted skeinof sodden hair.

Parable

© Reibetanz John

The first time I appreciatedthe story of the prodigal sonand how -- to the chagrinof the righteous brother who'd stayedat home minding his mannersalong with the company store --the father laid on dinnerwith cakes and wine galorewhen the selfish oaf went brokeand came running home for a blessing,instead of giving him a dressing-down, and a swift kick,

was when, a father myself,I tried my hand at bakingangels: thin, delicatemiracles -- performed without breakinga single wing! Forty-six,and then the last two felland shattered

An Offering

© Reibetanz John

When a creature dies ... the fleshand soft parts of the body rot quickly.All that is left are the bones and teeth. (textbook entry on 'fossils')

Midland Swimmer

© Reibetanz John

'Are you asleep?'Like a door that always openson the same empty closet,the old jokey questionyou can never answer 'yes' tois a snap, in comparisonto 'Where are you?'

Iris Holden, District Nurse

© Reibetanz John

`Love's mysteries in souls do grow,But yet the body is his book.'

The Finger Puppets in the Attic Dollhouse

© Reibetanz John

If they, more petite than the mice whose flittings have pillaged their robes' sparkled trim,

Eyethurl

© Reibetanz John

Sometimes, at night,when the north wind slams against the houseand downpipes shudder and whistle,I climb steep attic steps to findheart in a blank window.

Epitaph For M.

© Reibetanz John

I slipped past the sharks.

Daily Bread

© Reibetanz John

We have cried often when we have given them the little victualling wehad to give them; we had to shake them, and they have fallen to sleepwith the victuals in their mouths many a time

Cool Pastoral on Bloor Street

I. Consider the tragic fortitude of mannikins, the courage it takes under casual poses to do nothing interminably each day.

The Contractor

When God made me, there was a war on:Supplies were scarce, so He did it on the cheap.Oh, not that He produced a moronOr paraplegic by starving my fetal sleep --

A Chest of Angels

'I have always felt that desolation,that hell itself, is most powerfully expressedin an uninhabited natural landscapeat its bleakest.' - Anthony Hecht