Michael Newman — two poems

Winter Colour

Blush-shy,
The flower rises
From the soil,
Then opens into white apparition,
Helleborous niger,
The Christmas Rose.

On such a grey and rain-rotten day,
I welcome this affirmation

Of unbridled joy:

 

Paradise where least expected

A Measure of Dusk
A delinquent moon slinks past Shetcombe Hill.
The dead-branch antlers of an oak
Defy the onset of dusk.
Clouds misappropriate the treasures of sunset.

I have seen daylight fade
A dozen dozen times
(This year alone)
And yet only now

See it in its mystery.
I taste the colours,
Breathe-in the perfumed voices
Of women.
A sprinkle of stars

Senses the senses.
No truth but in the senses.

 

Jacob Lotinga

From‘An Algarve Sketchbook’

East Asian Thought by a Portuguese Pool

Deckchairs – an impeccable retort,
neatly arrayed beside a shimmering pool,
to all that’s gloomiest in Buddhist thought:
no suffering today! That blissful cool
will make you feel that you can levitate,
while shifting shapes of light and shadow play,
and sun’s caress and blanket’s warmth await:
this is decidedly a Daoist day.

Why be ashamed? Draw sweetness from each ray:
you’re destined, with sun-worshippers, to strive
without striving; call it wu wei
or what you will. It’s good to be alive,
with hardly a wisp of white in the boundless dome,
and eyes half-blinded, as when you emerged from the womb.

 

To Palms on the Seafront

Palm trees on parade
like giant elongated pineapples
prodding the sky from a white, cobbled pavement,
I’ve seen you wave
ingenious deep-green fronds like paper cuttings
freshly completed –
show them off to teacher!

Cheerleaders
dancing defiant in drizzle,
come back with me and cheer my spirits there.

Could you adjust to the dreary country I’m from –
lift our morale and solve our political problems?
Could you forget the breakers, the boardwalk, the gulls,
the chatter in Portuguese, the promise of warmth?

Palm trees – pineapples, cheerleaders –
I’m not sure I could bear to chop you down,
remove you from the habitat you know.
Logistically, it would be difficult:
strapping you on to the roof of the shuttle bus
and then the plane: “We’re having some turbulence
from palm trees…”

I’ll have to leave you behind,
but shake once more: I’ll carry you in my mind.

 

The Workaholic on Holiday

…is not very good at relaxing.
Gazing out at the waves is too taxing!
So she thinks up some task
and thus fashion a mask
for compulsive behaviour. No basking,

no pottering poolside – not she!
And no dipping of toes in the sea.
If such things are done,
they must not be for fun
but conducted most seriously.

Jacob grew up in Nottingham-shire, studied Modern Languages at university, and has lived for extended periods in South Korea, China, Taiwan, Japan, and Italy. Jacob is currently based in Sheffield, UK.

Virginia Betts

An Afternoon Walk.

It is after midday,
And, filled with wine and warm food,
We flatten the wet grass
With clumsy trudge.

Leaves reveal the sun’s prismatic flashes,
Intermittent arrows that offer
Blind comfort.

The damp air smells of twilight,
Though the day’s hardly done.
And each stone, weather-worn,
Deflects a close inspection,
In shades of shadowy blue.

We tiptoe around the grassy mounds,
I, imagining the shivering rows, turning,
Where we step,
Disturbed.

We hold hands, but I am
Not there.
I think I hear ancient hymns drift and catch
On the breeze,
And whispered voices slip from slumber,
Diffuse across time, without words.

All that remains is a feeling.
The chipped and crumbling stone fragments;
My thoughts dissemble into shards
On the grass.

And I am in this earth –
This soft, brown, enveloping ground,
Absorbed,
Where no light or sound
Can reach me.

This strange, bleak and hollow silence,
Surrounds me fold on fold,
Where no bird sings,
And stories never told
Fight to surface.

I hear the distant mower drone,
And lamb bleats murmur,
While high above, an engine of the past
Hums peacefully across the sky,
The thin smoke trail connecting you, and I

To be wrapped within this silent world;
To cease to be;
Where all deeds die,
And somehow slip away

In time, we are all just stories;
Our vain attempts to make our mark,
Melt like sandstone in rain;
Like chalk into dust.

Our names carved in art
Fail to be indelible,
And who knows
Who lies here?

Our fingers find their meeting point.
I think this moment should be suspended.
For jealous Time trivialises the relentless
Crawl upon the wheel,
And shatters us,
Scattering our thoughts to be blown to the wind.

Virginia graduated from Essex University with a degree in Literature, and later gained a postgraduate degree in teaching English. She taught for 15 years, then set up her tuition business, Results Tutoring, where she indulges her passion for literary analysis whilst
helping her students to achieve their potential. The written word creates a visceral sensation in Virginia; poetry is her preferred method of emotional expression. Her other obsessions are
swimming and violin playing.