Ophelia's Nun

Love's counterpoints deny that entropy,
cranked punk electric frazzles filled with angst
That spat the overture of youth to me.
It's time to move on now and live amongst
The sounds of lovers' choral evensong
Where grown and wiser passions sound in throng.

The son of doting parents, guncut through
upon a nameless stretch of tarmacked yard;
A body hanging from a chestnut bough,
for taking silver coins as blood reward:

Reprisals for two wrongs that are not known;
Two pointlessnesses, when viewed on their own.

Originally posted by exhale
Good morning, Sir.

Have you sent a warm greeting
to the green East Anglia for me?

I shall greet the voles in Hobson's Brook,
all scrunchy-nosing reeds, heads out from burrows.
I shall salute the starling and the rook,
on my allotment's broad potato furrows.
I shall halloo the colleges and spires
and sing when Hill's Road Churchbells sound in chime.
I shall greet warmly smells of rustic fires
Blowing in the wind this havest time.

I shall shout your name for you, and hear
its echoes on the fenlands far and near.

I'll post it for yez, of course!

Her easel's placed at forty five degrees to the window, and it's lit by a desklight that sends golden concentric circles out across the canvas she's matted with jutting, curling slabs of green. She gazes at gold on green and tries to capture that trick of light with a spread of oils converged and changing into another colour again under the lightbulb's constant trickery. But then a bird shadow streaks the picture; she looks up out through her window and down onto the pavement below.
She sees him! There he is, below, in that freshly ironed pink shirt and blue jeans, and dark blue sneakers like her own, yes, just like her own she's wearing now! She giggles. He lopes out of the cul de sac opposite, the top of his head bald and his frame a little portly; not like in the famous photographs of him; holding out his hand and swaying a little to avoid an overgrown roadside conifer, pushing the green from his face and frowning under a dazzling sun. She gasps, wringing her hands a little, standing at the window, jumping like a child at the dazzling sight of an ice cream van tinkling in her neighbourhood on a summer weekend, and looking at her watch. Ten to five! Right on time! Always right on time!
But he never looks up at the window. She crouches down to the carpet suddenly, eyes always fixed through the window, not wanting to lose sight of her beloved; she grips the feet of her easel and turns it almost to face parallel to the pane. Yes, he was an artist too, before seclusion; he will look! He will see! He will notice! It will come, the moment will come! All the way from Johannesburg, to be here, opposite his! He will notice. He will see the canvas, he will knock on the door, he will ask for her, and he will come! She will be his return!

I see the three of us between the trees
deep in the old school wood, aged five, I'd say:
Simon, with old scabs on both his knees
and cuts, always from falling; Peter's grey
roller neck half-covering his chin.
We had one plastic barrel each, at play:
we'd lay them flat and then, we'd each get in
and kick them forward, then we'd roll away
down, down the leafy ground, we echo-roaring
in our noisy, spinning tubes. A crash into
a dead elm set some men, there busy sawing,
to shout, "Come on, clear off, the three of you."

Simon rode his moped into town
one Monday night, with not much on the road.
Seventeen. He took the lamp-post down,
Killed his mother's light. I see his broad
face now, popping out of his red barrel,
giggling, he a baby, just like Peter.
I saw Peter at the funeral,
Death grey, dead already. One night Peter
made good a promise on the third attempt,
successful. Why tonight, they come to mind
I just don't know. I guess I'm not exempt
from brokenheartedness, come of this kind.

A seven in the evening transience
greets Mill Lane; sunny gable panes and bright
white rendered housebricks shine like brand new pence,
Coining future memories of light
nights of gentle headings into town
of sleeveless, laughing groups of twos and threes,
who stop inside The Anchor first to down
a pint, and then head riverward, the breeze
following their route toward the full,
lapping Millpond water. There, broad punts
rock their hollow knocking in the pull
of ripples guided under gushing shunts
of boat poles pushing forward. Coin this grace
forever in my memory of place.

Originally posted by Barroom Hero
That's a scene I can picture. Thanks for a short escape.

Thank you. I'm pleased you liked that one. It was a beautiful summer's evening in the centre of Cambridge today and I really wanted to write about it.