Three by Alan Dunnett

after
a second day begins
a simple measurement
how many swords
are left
imperative to get back
to the castle no spell
will serve the winter sun
lights carrion
_____
memory
maiden at the high window
kneeling one lord
is master of all
payment
in gold every time else
see children die her love
is outside
north-east possibly
dead some troubadour
takes his chance

----------------
return
too late the bell
a voice
too late
the frozen warrior the broken
helm the heart
beat held
silence then she
forgot the purpose
of prayer

Alan Dunnett, London, UK

Identity by Alan Dunnett

At night, I think I hear this child, a sound
among the deep still dark and yellow windows.
No one stirs. I used to think the cats
were children, very small children crying insistently
and insane. I saw the cats. I heard them.
But now I hear a low, slow intermittent running
in my inner ear; molten, worm-like. It is not sour wax.
My ear turns into a chrysalis whose shell bursts apart
and in a floor of the air stands the voice of the child,
heard only by me, impossible to prove! If I make you see,
it becomes nothing: a conjuror's coin disappearing between fingers.
A smudge of sweat at its last, greasy glistening in the palm.
You are here, beside me. Welcome. I am in your spell,
I am outside your spell. You smile. Whatever does that mean?
You believe I asked you here. Perhaps. One thing is clear.
There is a sound. Look out. Look down. I am outside
like Nebuchadnezzar, ugly in excrement, head
cocked. My pupils are the orange edges of doors.
Yet you say, if you hear anything, it is only a cat.

Previously published in Interpreters House

Alan Dunnett, London, UK

Underwater or Plunder by Alan Dunnett

Green bones of cheek and jaw, of shin and thigh
Fall and rise, to silt or sky, while adventurers tilt
Slightly and return in their cabins, trying plans

In argument for doubloons and dead men's eyes.
It is still hot at midnight, even the ponderous blades
Of the fan are sweating. Still talk is breathed

Out, there is as much uncertainty as the sea shifts.
Now the moon blindly searchlights the water, then the wind
Falls from the rigging. They will cast their die

Where incestuous currents twist against each other
And the fish are hunting with poisonous mouths.
That greed-worn map... written with a mixing

Of gunpowder and rum, pestled together
In longitude and latitude in a cave beneath a tavern
In Old Jamaica ! Will you go down

Where X marks the spot and search
Among the moving bones ? This is a chance
Like a fallen angel, and all the jaws work in a whisper
Against seaweed and shin for the taking.


Alan Dunnett

First published in Hurt Under Your Arm (Envoi)