Gill McEvoy

Taking Possession.

As if someone had been modelling bird-legs
and these were the rejects,

a jangle of scrawny metal legs and feet
is thrust in my palm. They shiver

on the car seat, clink and jingle,
a tangle of brass and steel joggling about.

I nose into the driveway, slow, unsure:
it feels like trespassing.

But no-one comes to check if I'm a threat -
I stand alone on the doorstep,

sorting through the bunch, key after key,
till one at last slides in

and with slow grind and turn
unlocks the future that lurks inside.

.
.

Michael Horovitz

..

..............in Paris

. . . arise at dawn from
foam rubber blue pillow
pink blanket piss flush
brush teeth – miss the feel
of rush mats underfoot as
in London – but never mind
that – I may be a Londoner
but this is Paris – down the
stairs jumping 3-at-a-time
out to the forecourt – ‘Good-
Day Sunshine’ – ask young girls –
student couples – restaurateurs
opening their doors for breakfast
– for directions – fart belch
buy croissant & apple turnover –
munch in streets (‘a small turn-
over’) – read messages on walls
wind way through streets wide &
narrow – just noticing mosaic
of cobbles on streets – historic
architectures of church & lion’s
mouths & classic statues –
bleach & iron smocked nuns in
convent vestibules – flamboyant
sexy walks of Paris business-ladies
lines from the past – ‘A l’ombre
des arbres et jeunes filles’ –
fall on grass in Luxembourg
Gardens tall trees & voices
in them laugh & rustle
their skirts & leaves
– so young – so green
‘Les lauriers sont coupés’
– the garden of love
open & seen – flowers toss
their heads in the breeze
– young lovers swing
their hips – I sneeze
for the earth is full
of sky today – & the sky
replete with sun – & birds
quietly jingling – their beaks
still snatching the
last shreds of night
plying darker lines of melody
across the dazzling noonday light . . .


from Wordsounds & Sightlines (1994),
reprinted with kind permission of the author

Available by mail order from: New Departures, PO Box 9819, London W11 2GQ – sent by return of post on receipt of £7.99 cheque to ‘Michael Horovitz’ – more info via www.poetryolympics.com
....
....

Jim Bennett

the best day we ever spent
2nd July 2005

it is always difficult to write about evening
the way it arrives in the late afternoon
the air cools the sunlight gentler
before you know it it’s evening
the hum of conversation no longer
boisterous, now somehow softer
the distant TV football watching crowds silent
the barbeque dying off, the burnt wood
smell retreating into the damp leaves
grass and insects return to the world
from a perch on a TV aerial a blackbird
joins the bird song
with a magpie on the fence top
and another in the tree
later as the sun sets, the guitar
and the Beatle songs
Let it Be and Yesterday
then Brel and all the words we could
remember from Amsterdam
and Jackie
wishing Attila could have been here
to sing ces gens-la because we loved it
when he sang it on the CD
instead it was les bourgeois
and if you go away
someone remembered then
it was a year since the London Bombs
we read some poems cried a little
and finished as we always do
thinking it was the best day we ever spent
and it probably was