a blackbird singing - a poem

To my untutored traffic-tuned ear

silence swims in the trees and all sounds cease.

The ripe void wraps itself around me

and I stand listening, silent, as the stained air

unfolds, filling emptiness with a floating

melody. A blackbird’s melancholy

liquid notes pour falling like a luxury.

Its voice, a vibrant instrument of virtue,

spills simply into the soft summer evening,

offering its honesty as a gift.

A coward's silence - poem

Assuming another interrogation
I keep a coward’s silence.
He can’t wish to form
an affectionate bond,
to walk in its mountains as a free man.

Isolated in individual cells
an unreliable witness waits.
This hankering,
her laughter at his clumsy gifts –
the daughter’s crying out
for help – the rhythms always central

enough to realise
that every object will outlive
me.

Traces uncovered,
a deal done.
I kept it for a week but he said no
no, it is not important now.

The last time I saw him,
some months before the end,
he told me we would lose.

He was not accusing.
He expected.

This knowledge he traded
for his life.