The January Birds
by Maurice Riordan
The birds in Nunhead Cemetery begin
Before I’ve flicked a switch, turned on the gas.
There must be some advantage to the light
I tell myself, viewing my slackened chin
Mirrored in the rain-dark window glass,
While from the graveyard’s trees, the birds begin.
An image from a dream survives the night,
Some dreck my head refuses to encompass.
There must be some advantage to the light.
You are you I mouth to my shadow skin,
Though you are me, assuming weight and mass —
While from the graveyard’s trees, the birds begin:
Thrush, blackbird, finch — then rooks take fright
At a skip-truck and protest, cawing en masse.
There must be some advantage to the light,
Or birds would need the gift of second sight
To sing Another year will come to pass!
The birds in Nunhead Cemetery begin,
There must be some advantage to the light.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- Владимир Высоцкий – Свадебная
- Ольга Берггольц – Наш сад
- A Song of the English by Rudyard Kipling
- Robert Burns: The Belles Of Mauchline:
- Николай Карамзин – Стихи на день рождения А. А. Плещеевой 14 октября
- What time are we living in by T. Wignesan
- Mr. Apollinax by T. S. Eliot
- Answer To Stanzas Addressed To Lady Hesketh By Miss Catharine Fanshawe, In Returning A Poem by William Cowper
- Faith and Faiths by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Низами Гянджеви – Семь красавиц
- Cold Eyes by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Interpret The Light
- The springtime of Lovers has come by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- A Secret by Sylvia Plath
- Incommunicado by Sylvia Plath
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).
