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

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