Poems

“Imagine Lucifer . . .”

Imagine Lucifer An angel without angelness An apple Plucked clear by will of taste, color, Strength, beauty, roundness, seed Absent of all God painted, present everything An apple is. Imagine Lucifer An angel without angelness A poem That has revised itself out of sound Imagine, rhyme, concordance Absent of all God spoke of, present everything A poem is.         The law I say, the Law Is? What is Lucifer An emperor with no clothes No skin, no flesh, no heart An emperor!

September

The first September of the pandemic, The sky’s a watercolour, white and grey, And Pembroke Street is empty, and so is Leeson Street. This is the time after time, What the world will look like when the world Is over, when people have been ushered into Seats reserved for them in the luminous Heavens.     Moving towards the corner of Upper Pembroke Street and Leeson Street, An elderly man wears a mask; his walk is Sprightly, his movements brisk. I catch His watery eye for a watery moment. Without stopping, all matter-of-fact, He says: ‘Someone told me you were dead.’