Animals by Kevin Cadwallender

Animals don’t do heaven,
That’s just us frightened apes,
Building the persistent myth
Of continuation which means nothing
And haunts us all of our beleaguered
Lives.

Animals don’t do heaven
And it suits them,
Honestly breathing in and out
Over their allotted existence.
A philosophy that brooks
No philosophy other than
Being, and they are content.

Animals don’t do heaven,
But we do, in denial, in fear,
In case it’s there, in situ, indecisively.
Look at the T.V., it’s all there,
Our pettiness, our terror of being alone,
Of not being alone. It makes no difference.

Mourning the loss of the intangible,
The animal that died inside of us
And made us this stricken, bone-bag
Riddled with guilt and excuses.


Kevin Cadwallender, Scotland

Measured Movement by Kevin Cadwallender

This clock that keeps ticking
From the past to the future
As if time were linear
And we were not transient.

All the photographs mapping
This progression between
Now and then,
Behind and beyond,
Now and not now.

Haunted memories,
Clicked onto paper.
Tricks of light
And chemicals.

These hands that have
Existed consistently,
Insisting on
measured movement.

one sun that keeps burning
from the past to the future
as if stars were immortal
and not as transient as us.

all the astronomy of the ages,
charting the progression between
now and then,
behind and beyond,
now and not now.


Kevin Cadwallender, Scotland 

Misdirecting Merlin by Kevin Cadwallender

if you had known
would you have said?
in all the magic of our
being together,
a darkness.

was it trickery?
did you weave love
into a shawl?
did you wrap
yourself in it
to save you
from darkness?

if I had been Merlin
I could not have cast a spell
to redeem you.
I am the shabbiest
of conjurors
drawing nothing
from the hat but
my hands, gloved
by your darkness now
and infecting all light.

My cloak hangs
on your bedroom door,
stars long dead still visible.





Kevin Cadwallender, Scotland

Heavy Water by Casey Diem

You bring me heavy water
Too much to carry or be indifferent to.
You tell me to be careful,
People drown in such shallow pools.

A baptism of love that is out of its depth.

We hurt each other in the past,
We were crueller than the deepest well.

I bring you heavy water
Which you pour into yours.
We catch the light and keep it.
We are holding rainwater in our eyes.

We are going to be an unstoppable river one day.


Casey Diem
(a collaboration between Deborah Murray and Kevin Cadwallender)

Wing Crazy by Casey Diem

You rescue another bee from pavement.
I rescue you from behind the glass wall,
You take an axe to the darkness around me,
We produce light between us and
Our wings grow like crazy.


Casey Diem

(Casey Diem is the name used for collaborative poetry written by Kevin Cadwallender and Deborah Murray)