Michael Jennings

Calling?

So close once – now I don’t know where you are.
Bonds that seemed so strong dissolved
by always leaving you until tomorrow.
Do you sometimes give me a thought?
occasionally resurrect old times,
each thought of me spaced longer
than the time before – a week, a month, a year?
And then today … It was the letter falling on the mat;
for a second it seemed to bear your handwriting.
The brief flutter of the heart was quickly stilled,
but in that moment I saw your face now no longer young;
your hair grey, your face lined, your eyes deep with mystery.
Was that mistaken glimpse of mine a prompt?
Could you be suffering and be needing my prayers?

Michael Jennings is an ex-cartographer, ex-teacher and failed novelist who became a Catholic in 1980 after twenty years of dithering. His poetry has been published in Acumen.

Four in the morning talking

Four in the morning is a lost dog,
wandering down paths that used to lead to home
but now go nowhere.

Four am is a bed as cold as a failed marriage;
the February of the day
before the first birds or shards of light
discover the edge of the blind.

Four in the morning is the only house in the road;
is a passer-by with a voice like a dustcart,
yelling at a mobile phone;
the guest come far too early to be welcome.

Four am is neither day nor night, light nor dark,
neither fully awake nor asleep;
where problems grow like a cuckoo chick
in the nest of your mind.

The party is long since over, but four in the morning
still waits on the wet curb of the day
for the taxi that never comes,
the sleep that never comes, the slow tick tock till light.

Ann Alexander has published four collections of poetry, two from Peterloo and two from Ward Wood. Many of her poems were inspired by her 30 years living in W Cornwall. She has won first prize in the Mslexia, the Frogmore Prize, Bedford Open, and Grey Hen competitions, and was placed third in the BBC’s Poem for Britain competition. She lives in Stratford upon Avon now.

Black Dog

He’s grey now, grown old in my service:
werehound with inflamed, gummy eyes
who lopes head down, wheezing.
Together, grown stiff and slower,
we walk the dank ways. He can sniff out,
find for me, anything rotten or dead.

He has a wild streak, will leave me
for long jaunts alone; returns
when I call, hears that high whistle
beyond my ears. At other times
he comes without warning
as if I dream him awake:
then he’s eager, bounds at me barking,
fetches his leash, woos me
till I’m recaptured.

I no longer fear him, have learned
to welcome him, my dog-for-life.
He’s good news, brings renewal,
makes me pause
give myself full attention,
go to earth in his lair,
while he curls at my side, offering
long ears to be stroked, twitching
with possibilities.

He will see me out.
While he lives, so can I.

Michael Jennings

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