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Poems Spring and Summer 2009


World Press Contest Prize Winner. Akintunde Akinleye Nigeria, Reuters.
A man rinses his face after a gas pipeline explosion Dec 26th 2006.



Bike Accident

 

My head in a cradle

never felt the sledgehammer

break the helmet outside.

 

Broken

like an egg

the helmet died.

 

Now I'm addicted to helmets.

Everywhere I go

I'm craving cover.

 

I want to eat

with a helmet on

wear it to bed

 

a cradling shield

betwen chancy Earth

and my head.

 

Rogan Wolf, April 2009







The Last Blackbird

 

 

That blackbird pouring its heart out

through the last hour of the day

may be the last in Creation.

 

It sings quite well, considering

the force of the world's grief, guilt, terror,

the forest of microphones sprouting round its feet

 

the incessant flashes and shrieks.

As the evening news re-plays

the blackbird's voice, the voice

 

of the newscaster breaks.

 

Rogan Wolf, Spring 2009





Doing Life

 

 

I am a warehouse of faces

weary performances.

 

Their multitude grieves me.

Each new mask

 

I take from my store

shatters my mirror.

 

Who made that face ?

I ask. Whose voice was that

 

pouring forth just now - from lips

surely not mine ?

 

I am a hole in a mountain.

I am a hidden horde of gold

 

deep in a mountain.

I am a langorous Worm

 

doing life

under a mountain.


Rogan Wolf, Spring 2009



“Blind Light” Antony Gormley, Haywood. Photo David Levene/ Guardian


The Anchoress Declares Her Love

 


Oh, my Redeemer,

my sweet sparrow,

 

how much more

blood is left in you

 

yet to spill ?

I kneel

 

on my shadow

in the stink of ages

 

of human waste,

covering my face

 

in your blood. You

drench me, Lord.

 

Only God could carry

so much blood

 

in Him, for torture

until Time's end.

 

Oh my soft sparrow,

mashed,

 

let my hands

cup you in worship.

 

I hold you. Forgive

me. Forgive all.

 

Our sin, you said,

is behovely.

 

 

Rogan Wolf, Spring 2009






 

Kenwood May 17th 2009

 

 

In the old man's camera -

 

a child's exquisite face

laughing

 

half-hidden

among flame-coloured

rhododendron blooms

 

full and perfected

just today -

 

among stormy gusts

 

with a sky grey as iron.

 

 

Rogan Wolf Spring 2009

 

 

 

 



Against the Blue


I delighted in the swifts this evening
shrieking their ecstacy far up against the blue

and then some chugging insect passed
low across the same blue field

and then Flight 140
thundered overhead, heading for Heathrow

and I wondered
do any of these vibrant entities

these passing dots
against the blue

register
on the eye of their Creator ?

 

 

Rogan Wolf Summer 2009



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Latest Poems
Summer/Summer Poems 2008
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Previous Poems
Poems that have appeared previously.
Summer/Autumn Poems 2008
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Spring Poems 2008
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Winter Poems 2008
File size: 133k
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The Emperor Unclothed and Learning How To Be 82
File size: 180k
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The Emperor at Kerbside
File size: 136k (with images)
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Three for Spring 07
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Four to Finish 06
File size: 68k
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Two for Summer 06
File size: 66k
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Three for Spring 06
File size: 124k
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Three for December 05
File size: 28k (with images)
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Three for October 05
File size: 40k
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The Terrible Novelty of Light
File size: 284k (with images)
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Word from the Far Bank
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Moments of Revelation
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High Tide
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I Hyphen Thou
File size: 7k
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