It was a grey November
afternoon, I walked
the leaf-lit street,
I sent slender letters.
I took to the Rye with adventure in mind,
where dogs scattered tame,
and their walkers strolled
aimlessly along.
A jay barked
at the young heron
(burping)
on the bridge.
It watched me down its beak,
and the brown rat,
ambled across the passage,
underneath.
In the alien plane
wood, redwing
were rumoured.
But all I found:
the conspicuous corvid
and the murmuration
of feeding, fleeing starlings,
(autumn’s little darlings).
On the Common I called
myself a writer,
the crow on the crossbar
eyed me lustily.
I kicked around the dull ceiling,
with dark birds and leaves,
the spectre
of a stillborn summer.
All was sweet in the concrete.
The grocer filled his
bags with sold veg
and his willow canes lay in a bunch on the pavement.
A couple asked for the ashes
as I took to the undulating
paths of the old cemetery.
The magpie perched tropical
on a gravestone.
I touched the frills of turquoise
lichens, eyed the portals
in the condominium
of the dead and fallen
birch.
Helicopters were whales
in the deep sea sky,
the moaning after noon.
They lay the boy in his grave
and gunshots skipped the gloom.
*
Luv u fam,
Miss u fam,
Neva guna forget u fam.
© Daniel James Greenwood, 2011
Daniel Greenwood 