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
- Robert Burns: Election Ballad For Westerha’:
- Thick-Sprinkled Bunting. by Walt Whitman
- Зинаида Александрова – Большая ложка
- Федор Сваровский – Погребение мехоса
- Юнна Мориц – В серебряном столбе
- Василий Казин – Ну, тебя ль, далекая
- Excerpt From The Gertrude Stein Collaborative Series
- A Poet by Thomas Hardy
- Олег Чупров – Шаньги
- The Hosts
- Robert Burns: O Aye My Wife She Dang Me:
- Say, What Is Honour?–‘Tis The Finest Sense by William Wordsworth
- Алексей Плещеев – На память
- The Future Promise Letter by Stevens Cadet
- Parabola
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).
