Landmine – new poem

Landmine

By David Milligan-Croft

.

There is a type of landmine

That only detonates

Once you have taken your foot 

Off of it.

.

It spares you

Instant disintegration – 

Instead, it gives you

That split-second realisation

Of the impending horror that is about 

To ascend upon your hapless body.

.

Of course, if you are fleet-of-mind,

You may realise the error of your way,

And keep your weight

Pressed firmly down on the detonator.

.

In the hope that someone

Might come to your rescue.

That they collect rocks

And sticks and boulders – anything

They can lay their hands upon

To replace the downward pressure,

That is you.

.

And that is how it feels

To be in love with you.

To have two choices:

To wait for you in vain,

Or to accept fate

And lift my foot off.

.

για τη δέκατη μούσα μου

Lost Love

I met Tom Pow in a Stellenbosch vineyard in South Africa back in the late 90s.

Pretty small world really, as he’s from Scotland and I’m English, but was living in Ireland at the time.

I am fascinated by how people’s paths intersect. Everything that they had to go through prior to that point in time for you to meet. And, perhaps more importantly, why?

One of the things I have carried with me since our meeting, was his poem, ‘Loving, Writing’, from his collection ‘Red Letter Day’.

For me, it encapsulates the beauty and purity of love. Whether or not it lasts is beside the point. The point is that you got to feel that way at all.

Tom Pow

.

για τη δέκατη μούσα μου

.

Let me fail in Sunshine – new post.

I’ve been a busy little bee of late publishing my first novel, Love is Blood.

Well, I’ve now also published my first collection of poetry, called Let me fail in Sunshine. It’s split into three sections covering childhood, nature and love.

When I first began writing poetry in my teens, I tried to write how I thought poetry should be written – T.S. Eliot, Wordsworth, etc, like I’d learned at school. This was unnatural and forced. (Not to mention, crap.)

It was only years later, after discovering the works of Raymond Carver and Charles Bukowski, that I realised it was okay to be me. Not to try and be someone I’m not.

So, I found my voice.

It wasn’t long after, that my work started getting published in poetry journals, periodicals, websites and anthologies. Many of the poems featured in this collection have been published in the U.S., Britain and Ireland.

Some of them are humorous, some are heartbreaking, while others will fill you with joy.

There are a couple of sample poems under the image of the front cover. I hope you like them. And, if you do, maybe you would be so kind as to pop over to Amazon and buy a copy of it please? (Just click on the cover image and it will take you through to Amazon.)

THE DEPARTED

Holes appear in wardrobes,
Cupboards stare agape.

Delft wrapped in newsprint,
Boxes packed and taped.

Naked patches,
Where photographs once hung.

Dusty bookshelves
With no stories to tell.

Bulging suitcases
Clambering for the door.

Except, I’m not the one,
Going anywhere.

GUILTY.

The pole from which I hang

Is normally meant for the washing.

Today though, I am out to dry,

Swinging like a criminal

By the neck of my t-shirt.

It was my means of escape

That captured me:

Across Mr. Gordon’s garden,

Through the hedge,

Over the shed roof,

With the crab apples,

Down the washing pole,

Where I now hang.

Le cadavre d’exquis, de l’amour – new poem

Le cadavre d’exquis, de l’amour.

Draguignan, 1999.

© David Milligan-Croft

Outside the vineyard,
Droplets of rain refresh us,
Along with the bottle of white wine,
On the wrought iron table.

There’s a sunflower between us
On the cover of your notebook;
We take it in turns
To write our exquisite corpse, of love.

Occasionally, we stop,
To exchange wine through baisers,
While the rain makes our words bleed,
Like your mascara at Nice airport.

Poetry: Trust

TRUST
© David Milligan-Croft

As you stand on the bath mat,
With droplets of the morning’s shower
Clinging to your ochre skin,
You delicately examine between your legs.

You are concerned that you cannot find
The string of the tampon
You’d inserted the previous night.

You ask me to check.

I kneel before you, in trepidation;
I am enveloped by an aroma
Of lavender and pheromones.

I place one hand on your behind,
And gently insert a finger.

My cheek is pressed flat
Against your warm
Tea-gurgling stomach.

I probe around your vulva,

But I cannot feel anything,
Except the heat from your sex,
And the closest
I have felt to anyone
In my entire life.

Beats a bunch of flowers…

The Causes.

By Jorge Luis Borges.

The sunsets and the generations
The days and none was first.
The freshness of water in Adam’s
Throat. Orderly paradise.
The eye deciphering the darkness.
The love of wolves at dawn.
The word. The hexameter. The mirror.
The Tower of Babel and pride.
The moon which the Chaldeans gazed at.
The uncountable sands of the Ganges.
Chuang Tzu and the butterfly that dreams him.
The golden apples on the islands.
The steps in the wandering labyrinth.
Penelope’s infinite tapestry.
The circular time of the Stoics.
The coin in the mouth of the dead man.
The sword’s weight on the scale.
Each drop of water in the water clock.
The eagles, the memorable days, the legions.
Caesar on the morning of Pharsalus.
The shadow of crosses over the earth.
The chess and algebra of the Persians.
The footprints of long migration.
The sword’s conquest of kingdom’s.
The relentless compass. The open sea.
The clock echoing in the memory.
The king executed by the ax.
The incalculable dust that was armies.
The voice of the nightingale in Denmark.
The calligrapher’s meticulous line.
The suicide’s face in the mirror.
The gambler’s card. Greedy gold.
The forms of a cloud in the desert.
Every arabesque in the kaleidoscope.
Each regret and each tear.
All those things were made perfectly clear
So our hands could meet.