Thursday, 10 May 2018

Late July Morning

This poem, perhaps an exercise, is in syllabics with a count of eleven per line. All line endings are masculine.

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The morning moon like a scrunch of spiders’ web
Or a frothy spank globule of cuckoo spit
Or a phlegm-thin ice cube floating in a sky
Of palest Plymouth gin at 8.10 a.m.
On a windless July day is witness to
The morning’s breathing absence, silent and still:
The cherry trees’ bronze leaves hang motionless like
Burnished flanges; no bird or dog cries or barks;
No man or child shards the silence with a shout
Like a crashing spear; alone on a T.V.
Aerial a pigeon pants noiselessly for
Thus early, yet blatant, the sun is stark hot;
It flings, though, isosceles shadows gone black
And fresh from beech trees’ gun-metal boles and thwart
Barn doors, although none has claimed shelter – no bird
Flies, no squirrel dashes. The sky is pure depth,
Hazed only by puff misting of absinthe low
At the heath’s lip. Plumb high the three-quarter moon
Like a melt of spun sugar sinks in the cheeks,
Wetted by the wash of taut liquor in which
It drifts: expect a tip-toeing spider to
Puddle across that flexing film, pat the moon
Like butter, fold it up tight and roll it home.

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© July 2014