‘The Misgiving’ and Other Poems

The Misgiving

The rowans have lit up along the ridgeway,
such rifts of colour they might be in Hungarian
traditional dress, their berries worn as so many favours
over so many layers, their fringed shawls floating
over embroidered depths.

Persephone descends in the fullness of her power.

So why do I glimpse loops of braid over forester’s green
and pennons stream the length of the ridgeway?
Why are the colours so brave? And why do so many
ride down to their deaths?



The Hackle

All five foot of him stretches up to the hackle
on his beret, the white plume tipped with red
that bloods him as a Fusilier and might be his avatar.

He holds his tin outside the Metro station,
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