| Milner Place lives in Huddersfield, England. His 7th poetry collection, Caminante, is his most recent work - released by Wrecking Ball Press (www.wreckingballpress.com). He has also written The City of Flowers, Piltdown Man and Batwoman, In A Rare Time of Rain, etc. |
© 2003 Milner Place
Non-UK folk can buy Caminante
directly from the author at milner@place007.fsnet.co.uk
for a quotation in any currency.
Spring
He said the snow has melted from the fells.
When a gale blows against the tide I said
the sea will tumble like those jagged clouds
on Blackbrow Crag. Dust in the sky
puts haloes round the sun and stormy petrels
gathering in the wake's a sign of warning
to a labouring ship of worse to come.
He said the daffodils have gone.
Saladin the Saracen I said was hot
at putting Christians in their places,
a holy terror to Crusaders, stretching
them in holy ground. It must have come
as quite a shock to be filleted by a Moor.
News from the Middle East these days
just shows how little things have changed.
He said the cherry blossoms soon will bloom.
He said I don't sweat the way I did.
A dancing bee I said is smart
telling the others in the hive just where
to find the loot that tastes so sweet
quicker than pirates with a chart
and a black-hulled brig with a bone
in its teeth, a jolly roger on its jack.
He said they say the poles are melting fast.
It's curious I said that cranes build nests
on chimney stacks and have no fear
of boys with matches, no dread it seems
of rising phoenix-wise, clutches
of eggs all poached, arses on fire
soaring like rockets to the sky.
He said flamingos make strange nests.
He said the nights are drawing in.
I said the moonlight on the pond last night
was bright and when it ducked into a cloud
some stars to south shone through the beams
of Bumstead's barn, a ghost owl flew
from the shadow of an oak that soon
would shed its leaves like grandma's hair.
He said it could be icy later.
Lupins I said that flowered pink
were worshipped in the ancient world
as phalluses of Pan the god
who fawned on every nubile girl
he met while walking in the woods.
So lupins grow not flowers but pricks.
That's to remember when you visit Greece.
Air fares he said in autumn can be cheap.
He said the forecast's for some snow tonight.
The cold I said creeps into bones
and augurs rotting flesh that's why
the raven is the bird of death and when
you hear a buzzing in the ears it may
be flies that gather for the feast.
Cheer up he said tomorrow's a new year.
A day, a month, a year, a life I said
are ripples in a monstrous stream,
a tide that sweeps the stars around,
a minuet in a Catherine wheel.
Time has no purpose when you're dead.
It isn't long to Spring he said.
concentrates the mind
like a health inspector.
I said wolves.
He said what wolves.
Wolves I said concentrate
the mind wonderfully,
it's something in the howl.
He said gibberish.
No, wolves.
Gladys, he called
the length of the bar,
don't serve this one
any more.
they know it's there
I know, the trouble
is
they keep moving
it around
inching it
past
each generation's wall
of knowledge, bricks
of straw and mud
soft
as the ocean's
detritus, the roofs
always two fathoms
below the diver's
aspiration
always beyond
the next field
of kelp
(see more)
All work is property of Milner Place. © 2003.
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