A Few Sprinkled Words
'How far is between the stars, how much farther is what’s right here.' Rilke Late August evening, light pollution a pastel scum fronging the pre-Alps around Lugano. I watch stars spell themselves. The Big Dipper points its paw to Polaris. Under Cassiopeia, the tail end of the Perseid meteor show, the dusty trail of the Swift-Tuttle comet on its 34 year love loop of the sun. I see only the last sparks as small as grains of sand, spluttering kisses of the final flares. I’m not putting words in a god’s gaping mouth; no sprung mechanisms in mysterious workings. I only have, as Einstein said, a vague idea about that highest truth, the radiant beauty of the unsearchable and a sudden awareness at how fantastically miniscule my part is. A few sprinkled words. Hurry On Drifting the promenade of Desenzano Del Garda, admiring freshly fallen snow on the mountains that crown the pointed head of the Alpine lake. A building north wind promises in waves. Here is October tightening its chilling dress. We look down at the orange rock under our feet. Spun in the dark matter web of irregular lines a curling ammonite galaxy with ghostly white shell, a reminder of time flattened in plain sight. The shell spins and I hear the clocks ticking trillions of divisions, turning rock into sand, caterpillars into butterflies, the first hydrogen atoms into atomic bombs, my young parents into elderly people remembering their own parents this age, and me a once immortal boy now a middle-aged facsimile, puzzled at how quickly the sand runs. Now back on the promenade, marvelling at the fossil, pointing it out to friends who want to hurry on - aperitivo calling, snow falling, wine to be drunk, the absolute-zero of it all. The Trout I see you sliding over the muddy gold bed of the shallow river as it slips into Lake Lugano. You follow a flittering shoal of hope, gliding the thin layers between the different forms of air. I’m surprised by your size as you snuggle into the sheets of river and light. Lord of the muddier moments, king-sized in a peasant course, you draw me down the line of the green-grey water until merging with the unseen. Published in Borderless Journal, February 2022.
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Poetry Biography:I have had over 70 poems published in the following worldwide magazines and literary journals: A Handful of Stones, Acta Victoriana (Canada), All the Sins (UK), The Amethyst Review (USA), Amsterdam Quarterly (NL) The Blue Nib (Ireland), Bolts of Silk, Borderless Journal, The Brasilia Review (Brazil), Bushfire Literature & Arts Review (US), Cadenza, Cake Magazine, Carillon, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (Hong Kong), DASH (USA), Clackamas Literary Review (USA), Cooch Behar Anthology, Dawntreader, Dreamcatcher, The Dillydoun Review, Earth Love, The Ear (US), Eastlit (East Asia), Erbacce, Envoi, Finger Dance Festival, Ginosko, Gloom Cupboard, Hidden Channel, Inlandia Journal, IS&T (Ink, Sweat & Tears), Into the Void (Canada), The Journal, The Lakeview Journal (India), Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Lunch Ticket (USA) The New Writer, One Hand Clapping, Orbis, Oregon English Journal (USA), The Passage Between, Prole, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Sonic Boom (India), Third Wednesday (USA), Of Nepalese Clay (Nepal), New Contrast (South Africa), One Hand Clapping, Opportunity Publishing, The Oregon English Journal (USA) Origami Poems Project (USA), The Paddock Review (USA), Panoplyzine (USA), Paper Swan Press, The Passage Between, The Peacock Journal (USA), Pens on Fire, Poetry Salzburg (Austria), Potomac Review, (USA) Prole, Pulsar Poetry, Rear View Poetry, Queen Mob's Teahouse, Qutub Minar Review (India), Red Ink, Shiela-Na-Gig (USA), South Bank Poetry Magazine, Stand, Waterford Teachers Centre, (Ireland) We Are a Website New Literary Journal (Singapore), Weber - The Contemporary West Review (USA), Windfall (USA), Writing Magazine, Words for the Wild and Verbal Art (India). Archives
March 2024
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