.
in the desert game
the heat haze
waters the horizon
and you know you’re
in a kid’s game where
a manicured nail can hit pause
and pause you for a tequila
under a sunshade
where strange-cool girls
lean and chat each other
strange whos/whys/wherefores
hang your desert day
.
.
.
.
__________
©Marie Marshall
.
All the rolling go
the throaty V8 yowl
the howl of carways
truckways and hot black stuff
the masked bike butch
beats that broad way
to click and collect beer
and lemonade so bitter
for the cool shade girls
tracing fingers on touchscreens
wondering who/why/where
are the lean strangers
.
.
.
.
__________
©Marie Marshall
.
The lean strangers
all the lone rangers
their golden guns
and silver slugs
ride away pinto express
into the singing desert
slip into the western sun
the wires zing while
the cool shade girls sip
tequila cocktail and wonder
who/why/where
was that masked butch?
.
.
.
.
__________
©Marie Marshall
.
following on
from that thunderstorm
.
there are black leaves
and white clouds
.
I’m craning to see
the familiar sky
.
my bare feet are wet
to the calves
.
high summer and I
get a room
.
.
.
__________
©Marie Marshall
.
from the Law
this half-hid lookout
see the bright firth
that innocent limb
.
and listen to
the whispered traffic
the city breathing
.
remember
I tell myself
the cool celery sharp
taste of kisses
.
.
__________
©Marie Marshall
.
.
.
.
.
.
the radio set
a child’s hand on the button
switches the world off
.
.
.
.
.
.
_________
©Marie Marshall
The new Showcase at the zen space is now published. Please visit.
.
by the firth
throwing chips
from an abandoned poke
high for the gulls to catch
this communication
is our secret language
their solid trails
by the moment
make text
they write in tongues
which I interpret
holy me
.
.
.
__________
©Marie Marshall
.
.
We’re so summer,
early, you and me,
the fuzzed triangle
lemoning the wall
where the shifted curtain
lets in unique light;
you hold my hand,
each thing is new,
will never repeat,
though we’ve made it
another illuminated June.
.
.
.
.
__________
©Marie Marshall
.
.
.
.
.
let-lie cinders
greying in my grate
while the birds sing
.
.
.
.
.
__________
©Marie Marshall
.
.
.
.
.
She’d sipped her blackcurrant juice
to make her mouth sweet for kissing me;
no one turned a hair; the geezer in the corner
chewed his stout and sighed at the air;
it’s always the halfpenny’s tar or the nail
that scuttles love, but right then the clock
was ticking and still had its run, still had
time to make its bloody murder of us.
.
.
.
.
.
__________
An old poem of mine, ‘By Ballachulish Bridge’ is now on the StAnza Poetry Festival’s Poetry Map of Scotland site. It’s No. 303. Please visit.
©Marie Marshall
