Tuesday 17 April 2012



Summer Lightning 

Deep In the day’s shadows
my blue-eyed boy dawdles
where dreams and stars blend
in glorious paradox.
Here, in his sea-soft space
galleons dip and rise
on the swell of an edgeless ocean.

Oh darling boy, time is so fast
and childhood such a skittish thing.
One day you will throw it out
like busted shoes
as you wake and smell the elegance
the algorithms
inside life’s iron cage.
And will you fly, I wonder?
Or will you sing?
The angels present at your birth
were rather coy, if I recall.

Nudged by the moon’s slow spin
you rise from your rocking boat
and I adopt a stolid air
as if my love for you
were rather ordinary.
How difficult it is, at times,
to bear the shock of summer lightning
arcing between our ribs.

When you are stubbled and long-boned
and I am kicking air –
unwrap this poem
on a bellrung Sunday during rain,
feel the beat of my devotion
pounding in the slack of its creases.