James Deahl

The Sorrow of God

A Morning Poem
for Robert Bly

I awake at dawn to a day of frozen sleet,
A cold day at the end of February
With the mountain’s face buried in cloud.

It’s so early no one else seems to be up;
Then I hear a car start, its engine warming
By the house next door. Silently the mists lift.

I read last night that a moment of sorrow
Preceded creation, that act that summoned
The Earth into being, and us with it.

The house finches have already returned;
I see them waiting on the telephone wire.
My neighbour enters his car and drives off.

My mountain ash stands locked in a ring of ice,
But the night’s wind has dropped to nothing.
Later, I suspect, this ice will melt.

The day’s still quiet, my children asleep
In their rooms under the eaves. And I cannot
In my moment of time believe in a god of sorrow.

James Deahl

James Deahl was born in Pittsburgh in 1945, and grew up in that city as well as in and around the Laurel Highlands of the Appalachian Mountains. He moved to Canada in 1970 and holds Canadian citizenship. He’s the author (or, in the case of Tu Fu’s poetry, translator) of twenty literary titles.

Tim Taylor

The Old Couple

When they were young
their love was a thing of flame.
Colliding like two asteroids
they were magnificent
but sparks would leap from jagged edges.
Incandescent, they would fly apart,
only to spiral inwards once again.

Look at them now,
sitting to watch the sun go down,
still warmed by the embers of that ancient fire.
She leans on him, and he on her;
time has smoothed their curves and hollows,
sanded them to fit each other
like pebbles rubbed together by the sea.

Tim Taylor lives in Meltham, West Yorkshire and is a member of Holme Valley Poets and Marsden Write Out Loud. Tim’s poems have been published in magazines including Pennine Platform, Orbis, The Lake and Pulsar, and in various compliations. He was recently shortlisted in the 2018 Hammond House international poetry competition. As well as poetry, Tim has published two novels; he also does part-time teaching and academic research in Ethics at Leeds University. In his spare time he enjoys playing the guitar and walking up hills.

Michael Swan

I Ask You

Why don’t you get yourself a decent boyfriend,
I said,
instead of all these yobbos
with nails in their noses?

They’re not nails,
she said,
and anyway, Dad,
I could bring Sir Galahad home,
and you’d take against him.

Try me,
I said.

So OK,
Saturday night
she turns up with this bloke.

Rusty iron suit,
hair down to his elbows,
grail stains all over his moustache,
and a strong smell of horse.

I ask you.

Michael Swan is a writer of English language teaching and reference materials. He graduated from University of Oxford with a bachelor´s degree in modern foreign languages and has later gone for a postgraduate research degree. He is the founder of Swan School of English.

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