18.4.07

Roger James

Goshawk


Six months, seminal
you spray out of the clouds
anything in your path
a form of prey

But here above Aynesford
one Sunday afternoon
still small
on a gauntlet

I see
you swivel your head
through 360 degrees
and stare at the sun
straight through me.





Noah


Bright as marbles
small eyes stared back at me
as I lashed walkways aboard
and settled stalls against the storm

and afterwards, looking back over
the old country
my memories echoing
over stone black waters

I never imagined how
I would bring them all ashore
and how these elderly hands
would give birth one by one
to all we had saved.





Mattie’s Birthday


I strap twelve chambers of dynamite
on the washing line, dig a rocket in the soil
secure pots in wooden posts
and garden the fireworks

I am Mattie's magician.
I set the spell that dims the night sky
and spark the ceremony
that startles the horses.

In the silence afterwards smoke drifts over the house
and small faces look up at me.
I say, ‘I don't know where it comes from,
this obsession with stars.’

You say, ‘Sit down, you seem cold.’



(Roger's biography will appear here shortly)