Gods dance within us.

There in his keep, netted in with nettles

Knotted with rooted lives, the shadow people.

His crown ruffled with grass, sharp wild thistles

Hints at nothing, just dark verdant tangle.

From here he watches us build with branches

Then stones, then brick, make homes, make whole

A flick of gold delights as he dances

With pale anticipation of fresh souls.

Now scratched out in rows, march out trenches

From gravel, to dry stone wall, to old oak

They shun the shade that slowly approaches

Warm in the cold earth they hold on to hope.

“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”*

Gods dance within us, beautiful, flawed.

*Taken from the grave stone of Maria Bird opposite the Devil in Polesworth Abbey, near Tamworth, Warwickshire.

 

December Sky

The radio prattles,

cars grumble alongside,

the ice slowly fades

from the windscreen.

I look up.

In front, printed in

thick black ink

stand the sleeping frames

of age old oaks

guarding the horizon

against the sudden dawn.

Vibrant azure, fluffed with

white streaks, ignited by

the pink, distant star

stops me dead at the wheel.

 

Atheist

I don’t believe in God.

My mother doesn’t believe in Microwave Ovens,

but they do exist.

Gods dance within us was a winning entry in the Polesworth Poetry Trail competition and is now carved onto a headstone in the graveyard of Polesworth Abbey. It was also published alongside December Sky in the Spring 2009 edition of The Cannon’s Mouth and Athiest is the second poem in my collection of writing from Blackheath Books. Please feel free to contact me if you require any more details. Copyright for all the poems rests with me the author, Garrie Fletcher.

There are also some poems on the wonderful 3AM Magazine site that you can read here.