Big Black Night.

[Peter Connelly]

Big Black Night.

The remnants of
The Caledonian forest:
Lost children standing around
The empty hills
That roar like stags
In their own season.

But now’s the time
Of the cold grey skies
And the black east wind
That blows love to eternity.

Loveblack night and
The smell of snow
Take the heart out of passion
And enter the snug
Skull of sleep
With all the skill
Of the trephiner’s art.

Your senseless breathing
Drinks in the sterile air of February
And your eyes move like eggs
Behind their shells.

(The blind wave grows,
Up-rushing
In the glowering,
Growing black
Of vicious night.
It grows and groans
Atop the bastard depths
Then,

Dropping,

Folds cold rumbling
Death over its own
Bairnly breakers.)

The winter night’s
Your drowning ocean.

You mumble up from your dreams
And burst through
With a gasping cry
That starts the cornered,
Cotted bairn:
He bawls and brays
For the breast, sweat-drenched,
That’s beating yet
With the revenants of
Night-drilled fear.

But,
Quick and quiet as a stillbirth,
He suckles in the quivering arms
Of you, lass.

You
You
You
You...

You to whom
My love is like
Hate.

[canUsmellthat]

What an excellent poem, very well crafted...had to look up "trephiner’s"...

[NickB]

.
Your best so far Peter - IMHO of course.

[khartoumteddy]

have to agree thanks Peter