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
- Aerialist by Sylvia Plath
- Robert Burns: To Daunton Me:
- Николай Гербель – На смерть воробья
- Tale of the Pope and of His Workman Balda
- The Basset-Table : An Eclogue poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Bistro Styx by Rita Dove
- Аля Кудряшева – Ходят катера по Малой Невке
- The Valley Of Dry Bones poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Lines on the Author’s Death by Robert Burns
- Isaiah LXIII by Phillis Wheatley
- What is Poetry? by Mark Olynyk
- Иннокентий Анненский – Еврипид. Ион (перевод)
- Making The Lion For All It’s Got — A Ballad poem – Allen Ginsberg
- Thoras Song Ashtaroth
- Darkness
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).
