If I Were A Shepherd

If I were a shepherd
The fire would be a warning
Days sinking into warm green grass
Sunlight molten lava
Etching brand lines on my skin
Turning sleepy sorrow into
Lazy moments dappled beneath trees
Seething with marigold madness
Til moistened with dew-like longing
And memories of yesterdays
We would burn again under another sun.

All this arid searching,
This drying-up of words.

Written 8 Feb 08 – ER

Blood Memory

I wonder if the blood that is riding in my veins
holds still some metal memory of
Celtic nights or Viking dreams
or heathen screams or Gallic fights
or virgin whites or black coal seams –
if in each corpuscle lies a lovers meet
at river’s edge or the taste of
fresh raw meat in Northern trees
or the sound of many thousand druid feet
in battles unrecorded by any men –
if leukocytes still harbour hatred
for yellow plague and dark cold deaths and
broken blisters and rosy rings –
if plasma flows still to the ancient rhythm of
tight skin drums and battle cries and
African flies and grieving mums –
if in the quiet death of each erythrocyte
dies another piece of ancient folly,
agéd wisdom, feudal longing – human night?

Written 14 July 09 – ER

Trinity

I tell you:
I am the mountains, the fire and the sea –
and you would ask me
to be just one
and not all three?

I tell you:
I am every turgid night,
every angel’s scream and devil’s memory,
I am every word you say and wish you hadn’t,
every baby’s breath and parents’ fight –
I am the fire and the ice,
the glory and the blaze,
I am over, under and inbetween,
outside and inside, left and right –

I tell you:
I am the mountains, the fire and the sea –
you would burn, drown or suffocate without all three.
I am me.