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1
My dress? Darkness, though each adornment’s bright,
red-glittering, sheer: shining costume.
I misdirect the reckless, guide a fool
on his fool’s errand. Others I stay from
necessary journeys. No way of knowing
why they, maddened, all thought stolen,
all acts aimless, should amplify me –
waste, wrong-doing! And they’ll have woe for it
once Consequence comes, unclasps its care-hoard,
it they haven’t yet stopped, are still obsessed.

2
My home’s noisy. I’m not. I’m mute
in this dwelling place. A deity shaped
our twinned journey. I’m more turbulent than he,
at times stronger. He’s tougher – durable.
Sometimes I come to rest. He always runs on ahead.
For as long as I shall live I shall live in him.
If we undo ourselves, death’s due claims me.

© Chris McCully 2008
from Old English Poems and Riddles
Fyfield, £9.95 Buy the book here

3
I heard of a wonder, of words moth-eaten;
that is a strange thing, I thought, weird
that man’s song be swallowed by a worm,
his binded sentences, his bedisde stand-by
rustled in the night – and the robber-guest
not one whit the wiser for the words he had mumbled.

4
There is on earth a warrior wonderfully engendered:
between two dumb creatures it is drawn into brightness
for the use of men. Meaning harm, a foe
bears it against his foe. Fierce in its strength,
a woman may tame it. Well will he heed
and meekly serve both men and women
if they have the trick of tending him,
and feed him properly. He promotes their happiness,
enhances their lives. Allowed to become
proud, however, he proves ungrateful.

© Michael Alexander 2008
from The First Poems in English
Penguin, £10.99 Buy the book here

1 Red wine
2 Fish in the river
3 Bookworm
4 Fire

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