The Earth and Earth
Working the wet earth,
bonded by standing water, as expected
I do not find ghosts,
but a layer of small stones and black roots.
A cracked pathway. Cats still.
My neighbour thrashes in the bushes,
looking for a son called Son.
The afternoon has stopped itself.
A window open. Curtains open. Music.
Why is Vivaldi so inhuman?
poem by Leslie Philibert
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Hendrix
His Strat howls like a sick dog, his soul in flames,
his wah-wah mocks the warm night, ghosts dance over
the darkening fields; octaves flood the sea of strings -
healing and bringing together, a sea without water,
He will not be found again.
Peace, peace, he is not dead, he hath awakened to the
last major seventh, too cool to live forever.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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Prospero
Houses of green water have risen before him,
of sickening height, dirty with anger, full of foam.
But he will not yet denounce his magic
but listen to what the thunder speaks
and write with iced and frozen fingers about
the flotsam of drowned wisdom.
His pain is older than yews and as
black as ancient olives, but he has
the last story to tell.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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A Cup of Tea After Dad`s Death
Exactly the right colour, the perfect amount of milk
one of Mum`s specials, as we gathered round the table
in the kitchen and put the pictures together,
the blue lights and the friendly doctor, who asked
what to do with his dressing gown.
Well it was rather a nice one said Mum.
Then it all went quiet, too late to go to bed,
too early to get up.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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The Last Garden
Finding a rusty nail in the half-black earth,
becoming scared for my hands
(swelled with secret rivers) ,
morning breath shortens, my arms
hang deadened at my sides, as
a hawk circles in the dark white sky,
watching my changing into earth and wood,
prepared to be angelic, watching over
the final digging, at least at the moment,
for this time.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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Apple Children
The fruit trees have not been baptised
children`s souls in limbo, in mist
Cold green fruit hangs in the rain,
it is a hole in the late afternoon.
They gave been punished by the battery of
the old priest`s car, hurried steps over wet gravel.
Neither heaven nor hell, the rounds of blossom unbroken,
pointless to walk through, should the rain cease.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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Asylum
1.
Lost childhood in transit; a container full of ghosts
and bottles of piss, the cold and the waiting, the torn
pieces of paper with words in Italian, the mantras.
2.
He turned to me with the eyes of a wounded deer.
I cannot go back to the mud and the kerosine nights.
I have a question - What is this Bundesamt?
A motherless child, paradise lost.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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Buxtehude and Rain
Broken chords forced through a sodden door,
the church fallen in standing water, as if
derailed, silent watchers gathering before
broken wheels and piston steam, thrilled
and waiting for a hand to turn out the lights,
a half-round face behind a door spending
a blessing, a saint nodding over a job well done,
the crucifix over the door lost in the darkening.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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Song of a Winter Attic
Sheets of white ice double the frozen glass,
the net curtains break the ice light and the
smell of damp books and insects, autumn apples,
moments of childhood under eaves,
I am not in sorrow apart from sorrowing, a terrible desire
is born to stop clocks, victims of time and snow and
my grave is hidden under dusty floorboards, so
scratching with broken fingers I search for my sorrow.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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A Buried Man
A half moon at its highest point.
His first winter at the graveyard; the grey sky falls into
bits of ice: he may envy the lights of the rings of houses.
Strangers now carry parts of his life; nothing stopped, no place
unfilled, affection diluted by absence as
the darkness waters the night.
Buses crawl round the empty streets.
From a distant bar the sound of glasses and laughter,
warmth.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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