Friday 30 January 2009

Night Train to Rome

I went to bed in the night of a city,
with light and noise and movement constant,
tossed and turned and slept and woke and slept again.
Unseen engines rolled the scenery past
and gathered it beyond my sight.
Throughout the night towns strobed past my window
but I passed unknowing.
Sleep held me in its echoing grip until I had enough and left her.
To wake to a different sky of delicate serried clouds.
Terracotta coloured roofs and pastel walls,
arches of dubious value but certain grace.
Hills rolling into mountains of green,
marked by cypress cryptography
pointing the way to ruined villas
while others waited timelessly behind forgotten light.
Roofless towers spoke of power or poets or dust and produce
and lines of supported trees fanned past,
sprocketing a film that would have surprised no ancient Roman,
until the power lines gently nudged the landscape
into today.

Motorgyre
Killarney, Co Kerry,
Ireland

motorgyre@googlemail.com
http://motorgyre.wordpress.com/

Saturday 24 January 2009

Untitled

On the new year,
I’m wondering where winter sleeps,
certainly not in my backyard
where the leaves remain sleepy brown,
grasses bid me to wake up soon,
waking up soon.

Sure, winter wakes here
by the calendar - at least
but my eyes lie to me,
and my heart tests the metal
of the season.

Dave Barber
Albuquerque, New Mexico
United States