Poems: Marsh Gas, The Bed of Flowers

MARSH GAS

The past dwells in the mind
like layers of sifted sediment
gravel
and silt and shale and oyster
beds down to the bottoming rock

Only
there lies rotting deep under
a corruption whose decay surfaces in
blisters
to poison all the air above

Lay down O lay down a
bed
of clay impermeable
that neither can past wrongs
well up
to contaminate our conscious
thoughts nor can the memory delve
unbidden
into the substrate past the
source of present ills and current
pains

for Tim Wright
26.08.03


THE BED OF FLOWERS

I know a place where all year long
deep purple allium and foxgloves grow.
The winds that sway the chestnut trees
do not reach it; nor does the hoar-frost
rime the edges of the little stream.

Here I lie, here where love dwells,
and I am heady with happiness
and the scent of new-mown hay -
for it is your bed, my darling one, and your
sweet head rests golden on my heart.

For Penelope
05.08.04