Poem Diary

[Antcliff]

Harrier, Kestrel, Buzzard.
Eagle by the loch.
Sometimes a Merlin.
All hunting as I brush my teeth.

What threat am I?
What threat to anything?
What swoop? What rip or tear?
What hovering, darkly angelic?

Let all the bad men
hide like mice. As if
they hear me on the wing.



v1
Harrier, Kestrel, Buzzard.
Eagles by the loch;
sometimes a Merlin.

All out hunting as I brush my teeth.
What threat am I?
What threat to anything?

What swoop?
What rip or tear?
What hovering, darkly angelic?

Let all the bad men
hide like mice. As if
they hear me on the wing.

[Antcliff]

Birth of the Birders?


Kestrel,
flapped into your mind,

now followed by the buzzard,
hen harrier. Was it the sea eagles

who entered first? The one by the shore
of Loch Schridain, seen nearby when you were

taking photographs of water? Or was it the pair,
months before, like us, unexpected lovers at the foot of Ben More?

[David]

Harrier, Kestrel, Buzzard.
Eagle by the loch.
Sometimes a Merlin.
All hunting as I brush my teeth.

What threat am I?
What threat to anything?
What swoop? What rip or tear?
What hovering, darkly angelic?

Let all the bad men
hide like mice. As if
they hear me on the wing.

I like the way you turn into GMH in lines 7-8. And into an avenging angel in the last three!

Cheers

David

[Antcliff]

I like the way you turn into GMH in lines 7-8. And into an avenging angel in the last three!

Thanks, David.

A neglected film genre I think. The Victorian-Jesuit-Poet cum Charles-Bronson-Figure shoots it out.


Seth

[Antcliff]

The gale season rather blew away the poem-a-day intention

..............


Recluses


The low walls
of a ruined Manx chapel
built inside the fragments
of a stone circle.

[tab][/tab]To replace it?

The barely existing Fortingall Yew,
the oldest Scottish tree,
surrounded by a churchyard,
locks, Victorian railings,
instructions, a decorated iron gate.

[tab][/tab]To keep it safe?

The living tree inside the bark.

[tab][/tab]Because it grows that way.

A dynamite room
inside a dining room
inside a dis-used farmhouse
beside an abandoned mine.

[tab][/tab]To limit the blast?

So many ways, so many reasons,
so many excuses, my love.

[David]

This is an intriguing one! And not just for the Manxness. I have some DuckDuckGoing to do.

Cheers

David

[Firebird]

I like it too! A lot. Has real atmosphere!

[David]

The gale season rather blew away the poem-a-day intention

..............


Recluses


The low walls
of a ruined Manx chapel
built inside the fragments
of a stone circle.

[tab][/tab]To replace it?

The barely existing Fortingall Yew,
the oldest Scottish tree,
surrounded by a churchyard,
locks, Victorian railings,
instructions, a decorated iron gate.

[tab][/tab]To keep it safe?

The living tree inside the bark.

[tab][/tab]Because it grows that way.

A dynamite room
inside a dining room
inside a dis-used farmhouse
beside an abandoned mine.

[tab][/tab]To limit the blast?

So many ways, so many reasons,
so many excuses, my love.

I think there are two, not just one, outcrops of Manxness here. But that is mere localism. This works very well, I think, and - somehow - the simple addition of the last two words to the last line makes it quite heart-breaking. (Perhaps I exaggerate, but ...)

David

[Antcliff]

Thanks, Tristan

nice to hear about the atmosphere. An important part of some poems don't you think?

Thanks, David

I think there are two, not just one, outcrops of Manxness here. But that is mere localism.

Aha! Exactly as you have spotted. As you will recall, the two locations appeared in a film clip of the Isle of Man recently posted by one D. Callin. Thanks!

somehow - the simple addition of the last two words to the last line makes it quite heart-breaking. (Perhaps I exaggerate, but ...)

Good, it felt right at the time. Thanks for mentioning it. Glad I wrote this one.

Seth

[Antcliff]

Valentine

I know you thought, briefly,
of sending me a card.
A half serious/half joke act.
Like us: a whole of oddly suited halves.

[Antcliff]

My close-up photographs of pausing birds
makes them all appear so haughty,
[tab][/tab]as if looking down on us from far more
[tab][/tab]than the sleight height of a telegraph pole.
[tab][/tab]"Flightless?", their focussing/peering eyes ask,

aghast, before they quickly turn away,
beaks high (like noses of aristocrats
[tab][/tab]whose carriages accidentally slowed
[tab][/tab]beside our slum), innate masters of the
[tab][/tab]fine art of looking down by looking up.