Ian Emberson
Lingering by the doorway of the woods
I was picking blackberries when I thought of the strange girl at the mental hospital. Beautiful she was – quietly beautiful. Yes – and apparently nothing the matter with Her – except that she
A Weed is a flower in the wrong place
A weed is a flower in the wrong place, A flower is a weed in the right place, If you were a weed in the right place You would be a flower; But seeing
Danse macabre
Death came to me in a mini skirt As skittish as a kitten, And said : ” I am come – for your final flirt ” , But added : ” You don’t seem
At the grave of Anastasia Baluk – Cross Stone
Anastasia And the sad snow falling A toiling sky And a long white line of hills A distant birthplace Short span and early dying Pain from what heaven Sorrowed your slope of life? Through
West Riding
Bright sari in a darkened street – The lilting grey of Yorkshire sky; Rust requiems for demolished mills – Repeating grooves of curlew’s cry. And did Jane once sit on this stile And watch
Aloneness
Loneliness and aloneness They are not the same For the shell of the mind Hears echoes of many seas It hears the calling of gulls From this savage sky And an ebbing tide Lapping
Violence ( Goya "The Third of May 1808")
The brain – the brush Here celebrate That long red stain Seeping the universe. Was not the chink of light Peeping between the walls Of birth – of death Transient enough? – And yet
When it was autumn in Eden
When it was autumn in Eden And chestnuts held golden leaves Against dimming light, Eve touched her toes on the sodden Soil – ran fingers through harvest sheaves – feeling all things were right
Spires of the fireweed
Spires of the fireweed on the fretted sky – Tints of magenta on tranquility, Do you feel nurture for the life within, The burst of bloom that yields your progeny. Do you have sense
Samuel Palmer prepares to etch " The Lonely Tower "
I must return To that valley of vision, Gather again to me Flocks, crescent moon and star; God – let the last lights burn At this down-dusking of heaven’s intermission, Grant a rebirth to