The Heart

Like most things, we could have vanished

easily without fanfare, thought or care

Instead it was meant to be that we chose

to deconstruct each chamber, and not carefully

more like ripping a band-aid slowly from a partial

scab, more like dissection of the worst kind -

and yet in the background a hum of machines

whirring out the most beautiful music

reciting such words as 'love' 'respect' 'faith'

a poetry reading to a crowd of followers

that could not bear to hear the empty sound of flat-line.

- Debbie Calverley

Two Pennies (Crush)

A woman at a grave
Flowers in the field
A farm's reflection in a side mirror

Two pennies on a track
Two trains have stopped
Before their destinations

One points east, the other west
A cricket calls, another answers
A breeze ruffles the wheat heads

She stands between two tracks
The sun is gleaming, setting
across the iron backs

freight cars waiting to be told
stop and go - go and stop
She swears she sees him

Spinning under the signals
The wind blows in the ghosts
The whole world holds -

- Debbie Calverley

Storm Front

Storm clouds billowed creating cold fronts
in the small checkers of her dress, puffing
her pockets like an intruder, invisible
bellows held close to the fire.

The rain began to speak to the tin above
outside the day strobed and forked
into instants that almost seemed real
the taste of air like iron on the tongue.

A farmer’s daughter, she understood
language of land parched to the quick
could feel its pores open and close
a lover’s heart spread wide to sky.

The hair on her arms began to shiver
as the storm built itself bolt by drop
fields flattened like golden dominoes
drought released in one great gasp.

- Debbie Calverley

Fiddlehead

Between the clouds shaped into leaping terriers or fat hippos drinking long from a river of sky - fly little hidden time machines stamped with different dates exploring currents of past regrets or future hopes, each one unzipped spilling secrets into ears of lonely lovers, humming songs of unborn dreams held too close in the crook of a mother's arms. They will only reach the stars by thinking there is no distance between them; a quick turn towards a twinkle earth shrinks into a fiddlehead curled tight into the shape of its own gravity.

Soap Bubbles

I am tired of the world

all it's blue and green ways

filled with the have's

walking on the have not's

children with curious eyes

behind pulled curtains

peek out to find their place

while the adults play

at knowing.

Still

so many unpopped bubbles float

up from the dirty laundry -

summer rain on a tin roof

a smitten girl filled with smile

swirl of tadpoles in a puddle

sink of sponge moss on the sole

to lie in bed at noon knowing

everyone is scurrying to get

everything done that doesn't

need doing once it all begins

to end.

Furaden

Why do people poison lions?

They eat the cattle

The indigenous would kill

a lion

through rite of passage

to become a Man

and protect the cattle

now they are Lion Guardians

but now nobody new

understands poison danger

tradition and rite

and lions die

as do we.

The Box

I've run over it three times

it's sides unfolded exposing

cardboard emptiness -

a bit of tissue off to the side

that once held a gift.

Twice now, the box has caught

dragged along under the car

like a kid tailgating on an icey

winter street, but this time

there is no laughter.

I'm sure that little box has sat

there defiantly for over a week

ever since it spilled out from

one of the party bags

early last Sunday morning.

It doesn't matter if it disintegrates

fades or blows away. I won't pick

it up just as I won't clean the side-

board, hang up my clothes

or fix my fallen hem with anything

but a safety pin. Every little trail

leaves some evidence that I exist.

Drawers stuffed with poems, hair

in the sink, a cup rimmed with lip gloss.

Feel free to curse me when I am gone.

I am not home.

I am not home.

I have never been home.

elephants

in captivity live ninety

percent of their lives

tails joined in chains

Tomrrow, the Wind

An angel lies bent in the grass

hands folded across an oxidized chest

eyes painted shut to the chance

of being saved

amidst yellow daisies a broken spade

a pail of dying weeds

a sparrow feather in a footprint

in the garden at night

solar lights begin to share the gather

of their suns one by one they blink

will wink forever until there is no more

bright to fill flattened pockets with shine

A woman sits awkwardly, hands folded

across the orange of her dress

sweating into the day

sky blue begins to bundle up the clouds

trundling towards tomorrow -

the wind

What Light Remains in Absence

What Light Remains In the Absence
by Eoin Galvin

It is not the sound of the lights turning off
but the full silence of you and I at home,
not the shape of you in my arms
but the weight of you asleep,
not the bright, terrifying joy,
the burn and breech of us,
but what light remains in the absence
who I have become of us.

My Grandfather, Poplar Point

Lament

Show me the worm 

caught in a bird's beak

or the squirrel still twitching 

in the middle of the road 

while bloody tires 

revolve someone home -

I will show you the worm 

deep at work in the dirt

of a long abandoned farm

turning in continuance

of softening, cultivating

a soldier of the earth oblivious

to anything remotely human

or that the farm is empty, run -

down to nothing but old boards

license plates still nailed onto 

onto an old garage.   And you wonder

what the purpose is, why the farm

once stood proud - windows 

gleaming with fresh eyes

full with the thrill of reflection

green fields wet with dawn

PJ Harvey - One Line

Do you remember the first kiss?
Stars shooting across the sky
To come to such a place as this
You never left my mind

I'm watching from the wall
As in the streets we fight
This world all gone to war
All I need is you tonight

And I draw a line
To your heart today
'To your heart from mine
A line to keep us safe'

All through the rising sun
All through the circling years
You were the only one
Who could have brought me here

And I draw a line
To your heart today
'To your heart from mine
A line to keep us safe'

Super Slipper

Such things -

rolling through life

but not like when I was a kid

tumbling sideways down 

some grassy hill laughing

not a care in the world

in my little blue trench coat

eyes full of what was always

right there in front of me

Kim & Deb

Hope

Beats in our hearts

Her laughter

Reflected in our eyes

And her smile

Part of these lips

Will always be

Hope, Kim, Deb