Secretary
She hops like a sparrow between desks,
picking words like crumbs off the thick, silent carpet and
works in a aquarium, the colourless fish that
stays deep and motionless, afraid;
she never opens windows apart from the ones
in her monitor - but at least likes the abstract -
she grins at the two teddies on her desk,
entwined in eternal jolly jolly, playing love.
And at night she silently prays in her bathrom that one day,
a second toothbrush will reside in her glass.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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All Saint`s Day
A bleached evening, grey
my memory follows me into the cold
the ice records my steps, and peeks
at my afraid progress.
I lay in humility on the damp earth
a priest unable to bear the face of God,
the trees make a lot of noise, the feel as
important as a kestrel in balance with the sky
my face is a forgotten piece of washing on a line
as stupid as a lonely dancer in the wind.
Nothing can be created, all that is holy has been
turned into foulness, gold and silver behind glass.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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The Endris Question
Doubt is manifold,
the employment of a Bengali eyebrow,
clatter of a white-boned wrist with silver,
empty words cored of passion.
Doubt is universal,
the brushing of earth from a doll`s china face,
scratching of stone, running salt of departure,
the uncertainty of immortality.
But if you asked me about,
the fastening pulse of spring,
soft summer corn,
mild air of an autumnal evening
or the harshness of winter`s question
then I will beside you.
I say yes and yes and yet again yes.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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The Night The Moon Got Stolen
In the night the moon got stolen
lunatics shook their fists at empty heavens,
cats stared at holes in the dark night
and seas turned into lakes, tides refused,
And songwriters hit the wrong keys
while lovers went home for an early night,
words were not whispered in ears nor
arms thrown across shoulders in first joy.
Have no fear for this lost face in the sky,
the lady that shimmers over standing water.
Aurora will bring the slow return of dawn,
Libertas will free this stolen moonlight.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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And Then
Outside I hear the sounds of children,
the sounds do not get louder or softer,
just a small stone in the hand of a morning,
legs splayed and weak obscurely in cotton,
falling asleep again I scramble up a nightslope,
dirt and gravel shoot from underneath my bare feet
and then
I dream of my first day at school, the smell of
stale milk and wet raincoats, the crying of lost children.
This is an unexpected return, as if I will never wake again
to the sound of the paperboy opening the creaky gate.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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The Sparrow`s Order
I walk between a forest and a river,
one male, one female,
they are both grey.
They are filled with relics,
skulls peek through trees,
the path is ringed with rainwater.
The wind is before time,
I am a black box in a falling plane,
unable to register panic.
Cat children whine in the undergrowth,
like lovers tumbling in fern.
A lost playing card, the nine of hearts.
A dead sparrow, frozen in the track of
a departed tractor. seems to say,
This is not your place!
[...] Read more
poem by Leslie Philibert
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Hospital
Doors moan like lovers, as compassion flows
like sick over scrubbed floors.
Controlled circumstance of pity,
corridor shufflers look lost as refugees,
concerned and clumsy with frames,
bags of black blood follow them like pets.
(They are not allowed to find sleep in the ground,
under air and pine needles) .
A place of decay under pastel, a maze for
Jesus the daughter of God, for ghosts and unlikely saints.
Let them go softly into the night.
Let them pass through the thick window glass
to where the others are.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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Another Bad Night
A black hood has been forced over my head,
a thousand unborn children sing in my garden,
I cannot be switched off.
Voices rough with tobacco are planning my demise,
they lurk full of malice before my house,
a distant televsion frees waves of laughter.
The darkness starts from the ground and reaches
to the top of the sky, I wan`t to tear out the stars
but they are too hot, like lightbulbs.
My stolen sleep has been pushed like a dummy
into an old suitcase, it rests ignored on a lighted pavement
next to the brumming diesel of a standing bus.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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The Trinity of Books
We must unlearn the habit of reading; there is more,
the coffee stains and the sand from that beach in Crete,
the buying, the warm cover and the pages that now smell sour,
the bill from a plumber long cried over, the pencilled
annotations of imagined wisdom. And the soul behind;
the standing at windows at night, the finding in rooms
without movement, the unreturned questions, the distance.
The rest? - an unfinished spirit, an idea that once seemed good,
a last page not a full stop - the resignation of reaching
the end of a story in the night.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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Train
A carriage full of dried moths, faces sour with old leather,
a midnight softness, perhaps a glass in water, slowly,
and you speak of love in the conjunctive,
you would have liked to have known more about me,
but your heart is walled up and full of soot as
roads and fires fly past the windows, they illuminate
half of your face as you speak with care, bloodless and monotone.
You are very reasonable, so sincere, your calm voice as regular as the ticking of wheels on rails, your eyes are railway bells.
But you have a brick in your chest, love`s asthma.
poem by Leslie Philibert
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