distancing

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the radio set

a child’s hand on the button

switches the world off

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_________

©Marie Marshall

The new Showcase at the zen space is now published. Please visit.

by the firth

.

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

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__________

©Marie Marshall

We’re so summer

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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.

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__________

©Marie Marshall

Late May

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let-lie cinders

greying in my grate

while the birds sing

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__________

©Marie Marshall

Being kissed by Yvonne

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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.

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__________

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

old posies

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old posies fill new spaces

fading as soon as made

old poesies for new faces

spring grass blade to blade

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__________

©Marie Marshall

spring

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cut the green stick

and spring bleeds

on the old wall

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__________

©Marie Marshall

equinox sunrise

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the new day gold

stakes its life against

those dark corners

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__________

©Marie Marshall

Inundation: Still in love with Veronica!

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When last St Mark’s Square was flooded,

you and I stood to our ankles, warm in lapped love,

.

but now I’m past my neck, exhausted

from treading water, calling out to your ghost

‘

to let me in God’s name leave; and as if by miracle

your voice, soft, calm, oh so irritating,

‘

affectionate, says Mary, Mary, wood floats.

Sometimes I think I’m wrapping a heart of iron.

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__________

My ‘Veronica’ poems still keep coming, still keep saying something. I hope.

©Marie Marshall

Veronica and the dream house

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I offered to build Veronica a house,

she shook her head, told me to build her

one in my dreams; I made it in virtuality instead,

a modular thing, oh the empty echo. I recall

her last: I will my poverty to the streets.

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I wondered how many virtual homeless

I could shelter, my eyes old, my memory running,

rippling, youthful, endless water.

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__________

©Marie Marshall