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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.
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When last St Mark’s Square was flooded,
you and I stood to our ankles, warm in lapped love,
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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.
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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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I don’t often reblog stuff.
fairest minds we see
waves rolling strong former she
surfacing the fight
flailing hard to breathe
drowning often unbelieved
neath a stilled glass sea
(c) Janni Styles