Poem No 37 is by Lack Daysman

THE GURU

From Georgian casements

north light

startles mosaics of veneer

round the tall clock’s sad face.

Behind the pendulum’s dry cluck,

my host greets me by surname,

speaks not to me

but someone in his mind

called "visiting professional".

At his sideboard

where a Chinese fan is spread depicting mountains,

he handles coffee cups like tools of science.

He ages, lean around some core of youth,

blazer, dated, immaculate,

the open collar of the pleated shirt,

a rent in propriety

where a rake or rebel might erupt.

The ropes of sinew at the neck,

shaved raw,

secrete a breath of lavender.

We sit.

Nearness reveals how his eyes have faded,

behind lids that sag and gather pools of tears,

face creased to an actor’s mask

of affability.

The clock chimes.

Over coffee and manuscript

thumb and forefinger of his right hand join

and undulate

to unheard music.

The voice intones.

Theory unfolds.

Words warm with passion,

but the eyes rest on the Chinese mountains:

eyes of an over-practised singer

stare through well learned phrases.

He ends, the poised right hand

summons my entrance.

At the foot of his bleak mountains

my learning is a fertile field.

I offer up my crop,

voice light in harvest song.

His eyes lift, hungry

for the hills.

Thumb and forefinger like forceps

raise my offerings,

to the cold light

of the Chinese skies.   

Fruits, blossoms decompose

in the withering rays;

the clock strikes another hour,

and stirs the pain behind my eyes.

The book I’d come to modernise

is shut.

He is an old man

staring at a cardboard fan.

Regret spills from me

into the void

between us,

carps at his stand alone.

"Alone."

At the word he starts as at a call

familiar from a dream.

In an endless instant,

before the pendulum,

has swung again,

he turns and I see

reflected in those cragsman’s eyes

his vision of the lowland men

who puke opinion with their breath

and the little servants,

with their suits stretched tight as boils

with what the masters have decided.

My tread is weary

on the worn front step

and firm with the certainty

       that I shall be returning.

Poem No 34

DREAM CHILDREN (from the music of Elgar)      by GINA RILEY

In Elgar's visual music

dream children play on the shores

of Lethe for aeons

before they have existence and a name.

How many here are yours?

All are little darlings 

and well behaved.  No sulks or scowls

to spoil the fun

for daydreams can't conceive

of little monsters

blaming you for one small grasp of life

one twirl in designer clothes

that crying

for something called a toy

or was it love?

Their music has a childlike grace

creeping up on tip-toe

kicking tinsel balls

toning down the splash of skimming stones.

Dreamless children never ever boo you

for spawning them in sunshine

leaving them on deadly shores.

But those of yours

who do exist, who have grown

to reserve their judgement

on the game-park, its Higher Disneyland

or Lethe-look-alike, who question

the bearing of a name

have no part in Elgar's music.

They have a dissonance all their own.

If need be

they will beat your heart

into a fluffy toy

emasculate your joy, for kicks.

For a laugh stamp on its pride.

Beware of them

for they are yours eternally.

THE CAT                    

The cat devoured the dicky-bird

That sang up in the tree.

'You naughty cat, you wicked cat!'

But he said this to me:

I like to eat the dicky-bird

That sings up in the tree

I stalk him and with sharpened claws

I hook him down for tea.

'I like to crunch his little head

And spit out beak and claws

And when there's nothing left of him

I sit and clean my paws.'

The reference to Wylye in this poem is to the River Wylye in Wiltshire.  This river flows from downland to the south of Warminster through the intriguingly named Kingston Deverill, Monkton Deverill, Brixton Deverill and Longbridge Deverill northwards to Warminster where it swings roughly south-east through the picturesque Wylye Valley passing the Codfords, St Peter and St Mary to reach the old carpet town of Wilton before joining the River Avon close to Salisbury cathedral.

The poem captures the rural tranquility of the area (if you ignore the traffic on the A36(T)!).

AN ASH TREE LITURGY

The choir rehearse their vespers in the ash.

 It is to be a small affair -

two blackbirds, thirteen wrens, a liquid thrush.

 They sing in a haze of green above

the nodding heads of marigolds borne up

 by Wylye currents where the day

is dying back.  The brasher yellow fades

 into a fainting wish, a sigh

for something gone that might someday return

 to skies like these.

The service now begins.  The male blackbird

 rounds out the hushing weed and sedge,

an introit scarcely heard, the colour of

 the disappearing sky; the thrush

and wrens weave in and out of Wylye song

 a breath as fading as the dusk.

Across the meadow, farms project a night

 of shadow over yarrow, mint.

The stream's eclipsed; you only hear its voice:

 the birds have sung.