old boots

Amid an

otherwise

pedestrian

day a small

iambic

metaphor,

as though

a sentry's

attention

had wandered,

as if a

gardener'd

given up

shallots and

gone down the

pub for a

pint or three,

stood beside

a lamp post

beside an

allotment

a pair of

unoccupied

old worn black

workingmen's

boots.  

On the horizon

On the horizon

church tower and radio mast

spiring to heavens and beyond,

needles that scarcely scratch the sky.

The view from here

The view from here

I Fog

Newcastle has gone,

and Gateshead. A fragment of Tyne

locked like an anchor in mud

a few blue-grey roofs some

street lights and steep houses

chain it to me and separate us,

buses form themselves from air,

vanish to nowhere; memory

is myth.

II Lucid

It rained overnight. Black ashphalt

sparkles with pleasure at being

walked upon, wild buses play tag

to their destinations always

leaving because they've arrived.

I can see distant green-brown

bounding hills streaked with houses

and imagine tiny people

imagining us.

III Nocturne

Brighter at night against the dark

the wealth and lunacy of the city

reflected on the surface

of the empty river, still

great crack, laughter, an argument

with my face in Fenwick's window

till, by uneven steps, I miss

the final metro home; home

is fiction.

IV Sight

We are as ants and less than ants

scrawling our sentences like

scent trails over dust

each I a monarch

in its own domain;

quod scripsi, fecit.

Cadenza

Cadenza

hunt
          feast and famine

farm
          ridge and furrow
          the long cycle

books
          labyrinths

internet
          infinite
          centre-less maze

song
          blood, seed, hope, lost

Between

Crossing the Millennium

Bridge suspended from

twin cities separate inseparable

we pause

               an unreliable

unrecreatable childhood

memory recurs stepping

plank to plank along Ryde pier

neither sea nor land and

watching the turbulent

threatening water beneath

disturbed

                a cormorant

settles on a floating boom

an artificial island in the Tyne

she and I momentarily

fixed for ever above

between  

  © Copyright Chris Downer and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Borders

The boundary's
moved through the years
north south, south north -
people, sheep don't
care: guards, thieves look
much the same by
any compass -
but at night the
lights destroy peace.

When no-one looks
borders vanish.

Winter hearts

finger-written on
a rear windscreen
in the snow:
      I 
 





   you


still visible next morning
though slipped a bit
sagged by gravity
and a slight thaw:
a metaphor 

Two poems by Chris Carroll

I

One enters sleep

with a sliver of hope:

that fragile childhood thread

still connected to the wobbly tooth

and wakes to find it gone.

II

Fragments from a lost heart

Life simpliciter

Glimpses of passion and purpose

From another world

Fall as shadows

Around the walls of this prison

Deportation

Colnbrook Immigration Reception Centre

Deportation

Sunday morning early

most homes still curtained-blind

I saw a pair of shoes

gaudy-gold giddy

night-out for fun shoes

some dozen yards apart

a half-pint bitter glass

abandoned unfinished

a lost thin silver ring

unconnected except

by my morning walk.

Tuesday morning later

I recognised a shoe

a grubby once-gold shoe

footloosed but not free lost

some distance from its old

place quite unconnected

except in my telling.

This morning early

homes still hard-blinded shut

against the dawn your door

exploded dragged vanned you

forcibly flew you back

not-home disconnected.

Ludo

Ready. set,
hundred metre dash, off
before you know,
ready,
ready,
hit-drop-run-run.
wait,
wait
run, run, home. Again
hit-drop-run-caught
out,
oh,
but, angled for though
a surprise,
on the board
playing chess from the inside
not sure where to move
or when, or why,
or whether there’s pleasure
in another piece captured
till, didn’t see that coming,
kicked feather-flight so high
I can see the whole game now
every racket ready to
smash me into the
Netball! Yes!
Game! Match! Tournament!
Victory! in fantasy –
in fact I find
whist too slick for me
I knock,
lay my bones down,
quite dominoed now
told each card to play
in my final cribbage.

Pen

A pen is
not a word

a word is
not this shape

the shape is
not a sound

the sound is
not a thought

a thought is
not a pen.

Fountain

Fountain




Described by stylus into the

parterre, a fountain: in design

quatrefoil, lilypads perhaps,

the waters of creation held

by a low concrete wall, its eye,

a double Janus-head, addressed

the four corners of the round world,

stone-blind. Its north face was carved as

a child, the next a chimera,

the third was that of a soldier,

and the final was agèd, each

spouted limpid water as though

it were given truth, the life-cup,

the tale of wealth and bought vision,

as though it were cheap as bone, and

all the splashed blood were washed away,

forgot, and each hour o’ the clock

a watchman’s shout, a phallic plume

declared time’s subjugation,

the Sisyphean victory.








.

Boxing Day

Boxing Day


The future of flesh:

bitter chocolate

and sweet regret.

Passed

sped past, trop vite,

a boy, 10 or 11,

white shirt, worried

face anxious, perhaps,

to be home.

Moments later

a disturbance of the air.

A death and a wake.

Against the prevailing

When the wind drops

body lightens,

steps lengthen,

home quicker, warmer

but, except to draw breath,

feint, and come back

all the harder

the wind never stops.

Quietly

Hinges oiled.

Doors no longer

semaphore

every movement

around the house.

I leave you

and return

unnoticed but

the floorboard

betrays me.

Early morning

Early. Walk 
to buy milk.

Wind scuds the road
raises dust-
-devils forces 
tears to haul 
behind them
pails-full 
of grief, fear
of your death.

Returning.
Milk and bread.

Sun warms my spine
unshadows 
the blackbirds’
aerial song
bidding accepting – 
brick, privet, cars
iridesce.

Arc of the 
bridge connects.

One walk
one day
home.

Material fact

I can see

surfaces

only

which, I see,

is two metaphors

or three.

 

No poetry in pain

No song

no poem in pain

nor civility

the herd move away.

Flesh tears at the mind

pitifies spirit.

I lap alone at

my old pool of blame

anger nescience

growing more thirsty

fearing the house-beast

moving in the dark

to kill.

.

Hunger

Sex, food and good wine
satisfy and feed
hunger. Power too.