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

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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,

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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.

©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

that dull fire red

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that dull fire red dawn gendered f

we hand-in-hand barely able to see

each other smile close in the murk

will magic heal the new wound and

birth the good grey baby day

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__________

©Marie Marshall

first foot

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my doorway

lets in your first foot

– the house warms

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__________

©Marie Marshall

Another straight-up love thing

She sang to me, all about

moonbeams and evening,

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and what’s more we danced;

the coffee cups rattled applause,

their good old brattle –

……….. terpsichore! terpsichore!

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Someone wrote our names

on paper, folded them together;

she burned this, saying

that clinched it –

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we laughed like a pair

of wind-shifted bushes,

danced again, more applause.

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__________

©Marie Marshall

For the moon

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You unbuttoned my waistcoat

and laid your hand on my ribs.

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For warmth, you said.

For the moon, I replied.

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__________

©Marie Marshall

by cunning hands

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your adze dipped

into my heartwood

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where tree was

became your canoe

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by cunning hands

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__________

©Marie Marshall