Poem 6

Lord of all I survey – if I don’t survey very far …
… the image that’s always stayed with me from this poem is sewing machine rapid beaks stitching bread from breakfast – that captures sparrows from here to eternity I reckon … published in Islands in 1987… I can see I’m still in love with the ampersand, influenced by David Mitchell’s Pipe Dreams In Ponsonby …

( I like the form of this – the three-line stanzas – also the image of birds being sneezed out of a tree, the paddling of haunches before a cat springs, and the black bellows of the cat’s throat purring … )

Kingdom

A sharp express
of birds from a tree
like a sneeze

tangles over the lawn
sewing machine rapid beaks
stitching bread from breakfast

looking out for the cat
on the roof the cat in the tree
black ears & golden eyes

the paddling of haunches
before a rush
I feel him here

asleep under my hand
while the sparrows batter the alarm
again & again

scatter & return unaware of their security
terrified of nothings
of a wingbeat a shadow

I pronounce
the birds to eat
stroking the jaws' black bellows