Fledgling

Rather like

a tiny dressed chicken;

bald,

but warm

as it nestled in my palm,

this blind morsel of life,

muscled out,

its miniature ribcage

expanding and contracting

in a staccato rhythm

slowly diminishing

into my cupped hand

until all its premature vigour

was expended,

and round about,

the hedgerows chirruped

in the summer sunshine.

John H Davies

2nd July 2011

Le Marche

A landscape bleached by sun
Distilled by many hundred years,
The subtle distillation
Of man’s toil and tears.

From far horizons, Sybil
Casts her beckoning shadow, now a mantle
To protect the ancient necromancers
Who, it’s said hid Pilate’s lifeless body
In the reddish depths of some demonic lake.

Here along the timeless pathways
Marched the history of our earth.
From Bronze Age man, the early Sabine
Recognised this rolling land
And merged into the countless hills
Which even now bear evidence
Of his respectful tenure.

It’s there for us to see,
As perched atop our vantage point
Towards the end of time
We delve among the sleepy hilltop villages
And ordered rows of olive groves
To find the scattered evidence
Of mighty Roman cult succumb
To mystical Byzantium.

The disparate land bore host in time
To Greeks and Gauls, and from its earth
Grew saints whose influence
Inspired great ochre monasteries
To which believers trekked on routes of faith,
Laying firm the comfort of those names
Which to this day remain.

And further down the centuries
Their message is reborn
In ducal palaces
Where music and great works of art
Impart the glory and the passion fixed
For all to hear and see
And ponder on the everlasting mystery.


John H Davies
1st July 2011

Farewell

She gave me

a second hand copy

of Love in the Time

of Cholera

and I asked her

to water the flowers

on her birthday.

John H Davies

30th June 2011

Sea Breeze

As I walked along the tree lined green lane

in the early evening, the sound of wind

gently pulsing through unseen branches overhead

reminded me of waves rolling over a shingle beach,

though I was nowhere near the sea.

John H Davies

29th June 2011

Haircut

She cut my hair

with the confidence

of one who’d

been doing it

for years,

but it didn’t

improve my headache,

or hers.

John H Davies

28th June 2011

Honey Trap

They came looking for their queen

and couldn’t escape,

these bees,

scattered on the window sill

in random stillness,

like upturned turtles;

becalmed,

unhummed,

expollinated

spider fodder.

John H Davies

27th June 2011

Late evening summer ride

A familiar shadow follows alongside.

I know it is me, because the

shirt is vibrating in the wind

and white noise fills the ears

and insects smack against cheeks

and smells of summer vegetation

and wood smoke and petrol

and burnt oil against the exhaust,

garnish the machine gun chatter

of the single eighty four millimetre

bore and ninety millimetre stroke

firing at every lamp post,

and for a brief moment man, machine

and road are phased in perfect rhythm.

John H Davies

26th June 2011