The January Birds
by Maurice Riordan
The birds in Nunhead Cemetery begin
Before I’ve flicked a switch, turned on the gas.
There must be some advantage to the light
I tell myself, viewing my slackened chin
Mirrored in the rain-dark window glass,
While from the graveyard’s trees, the birds begin.
An image from a dream survives the night,
Some dreck my head refuses to encompass.
There must be some advantage to the light.
You are you I mouth to my shadow skin,
Though you are me, assuming weight and mass —
While from the graveyard’s trees, the birds begin:
Thrush, blackbird, finch — then rooks take fright
At a skip-truck and protest, cawing en masse.
There must be some advantage to the light,
Or birds would need the gift of second sight
To sing Another year will come to pass!
The birds in Nunhead Cemetery begin,
There must be some advantage to the light.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- Николай Языков – Странный случай
- To Natasha poem – Alexander Pushkin
- Hohenlinden by Thomas Campbell
- The Gardener LVII: I Plucked Your Flower by Rabindranath Tagore
- Sheppard’s Quest by Shawn Ervin
- The May-Tree by William Barnes
- Days Are Gone by Mary Etta Metcalf
- A River Flows Underground by Satish Verma
- Snakecharmer by Sylvia Plath
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Я. П. Полонскому
- Loon Point poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Child’s Evening Prayer by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Thomas Lux – Thomas Lux
- Владимир Британишский – Греч: Встреча с Батюшковым
- Владимир Маяковский – Раньше были писатели белоручки… (Роста №52)
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).
