Poem "Isleworth" by Roy Carnon
By haha and smiling river
I walk in my Grandfather's hand
to history under chestnut leaves.
The lion of Northumberland
gilds liquid images
of too slow oars -- stroking
the broad sheen of my delight.
Across sun-burnished water
lengthening tones of afternoon
ebb gently at my feet --
too soon the mirrored church
will drift its evensong.
Under arches of a child-blue sky
the lock-bridge dams deep mystery,
iron engines, old years' tunes
flood the misted park,
and old wonder is now --
as it was never then.
Comments:
Poem "The Pm Factor" by Roy Carnon
The science boys have done their homework
and having found the Pm. factor
cooked it in a slow reactor.
So in the lab they cracked a neutron
and with a little stellar dust
found an antidote to rust.
Comments:
Poem "Portrait for Sarah" * by Roy Carnon
Bernhardt --
you would have loved
the crack of this gilt joke
brazen on the counterfeit proscenium
and brushed your own acrylic flattery
over the meretricious stage
over the celluloid proportion.
Histrionic posturing
in shameless glitter --
Glenda as Sarah
importuning plastic paint
after Georges Clairin
slicked in hardboard masquerade
of canvas yellowed by linseed time.
The brutes are harsher than your limes --
khol-rimmed light tricked the applauding eye --
more subtle make up
still can't hide the cracking paint
of loneliness.
* Sarah is played by Glenda Jackson in the film "The incredible Sarah"
Comments:
Poem "Landscape" by Roy Carnon
This is the arena
where giants play.
The iron balls fall
and stiff pennants
sentries of the black horizon
stare out compassion:
blood stained the peacocks call.
Shackled hands and claws in lesion
iron-locked, chain-linked,
each tempered separate
forge the mind's unreason.
From this unholy state
dust feeds life feeds death
each in hate conceived
lives on consumed deeper in sand
and only time can consummate.
Comments:
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