More from the archives of Poetry North East

STAR OVER LINDISFARNE


Cold star,
Winking down the rolling vertigo of sky,
Here I am, alone,
With nothing between us but the pulsating void of night.


Beneath the naked sky,
I have come to you.
Washed by waves of night,
Encircled by the heaving purple sea,
Bathed in spangled night-brightness across the jagged dunes
I have come,
And you don't care.


My eyes burn in the night wind;
My heart burns -
And you, cold star, inanimate,
Need no love.
Yet you and I are intimate.


The great black castle lurches behind me,
Heaving, eerie, into the sky,
As if to weigh me to the Earth.
But you, star,
You and I are pulled together.
Forever apart, we hurtle through the Universe.
You and I are intimate.




ROGER HARVEY






LINDISFARNE


What did you look at Cuthbert
On your island?
Did you marvel at the colours
in the rock pool?
Pink sea anemonies
And white coral weed
Translucent.
Or were your eyes
On the clear horizons?
This enormous vista of space
Accentuated by rocks - far distant,
The Whin Sill cropping up
At Bamburgh
And out to sea.
Sentinels,
The Farnes formed one behind the other,
Frozen whales, flat triangles of obdurate faith
Against the sea.
And were you aware of
The emotions of the Universe
As it pulled the bay free of water
Or flooded the mudflats,
The fluctuations of powers
Beyond your control?
And did you walk
The tenuous path to the mainland
When it was water free
And contact your fellows
With love?
And were you burnt by them?
What sent you back to your cell
Dwelling inwardly,
Voluntary denial
Of all sensory stimulation
To see beyond the scene?




WENDY ZOULA






BONFIRES


Something is burning inside me;
you could call it my heart
but it's much more precise than that, it's a bonfire;
crackling sticks of shy words.


Crossing the country last week,
I saw them,
jumbled up heaps of poems
assembling,
rioting bundles of wood,
alone in October-dry fields.


Tonight, sitting here,
with only you in my eyes,
dazed by the intense glare, I devise
a scheme to link bonfires across the land,
to burn down the walls between our hands,


if only to set your face alight,
if only to see one Guy Fawkes Day
your dreamy children smile.




KEITH ARMSTRONG






THE SEA IS WASHING SALT UPON YOUR SKIN


Wanting you, coast to coast, I have desired
To capture carefully the secret of mould
From those who thought they could teach me how to love
With flesh-hooks of teeth, and to store one's gold
Like rarely seen pearls of the dawn and frost.


Gone from the maps of your skin I cannot go far
From what I have already lost;
Lately when we have parted I wanted to scar
Your memory with my decay, rust,
And ruin, to tell you to your face
I wait beside death for your return.


Must
you let them breed upon your style and grace
Deceiving your heart with their flesh and lies,
And caring nothing for what is within -
Evenings bring the gentle blue from your eyes,
The sea is washing salt upon your skin.




MELANIE J. TAYLOR