Peter Russell Poems

Sleep, sleep, with thy broken keys
Till Pilate wash his hands -
The time is cracked and memory flees
Bright afternoons of other lands.
...

The apple-trees of my delight
The cherry-trees of my despair
Drop silently their blossoms bright
On my bent back and my grey hair
...

You took some empty, watery, colourless space
And placed some pink and blue to make a flower;
Light-green for stalk, and emerald at the base
For grass, black earth - but MAGIC made your shower;
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The moon has crossed the path of the sun
And all is darkness in the day.
A lone red fox crosses the road
But all the owls are hid away.
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Pause on the bridge where Nietzsche paused perhaps,
Rapt in delight as you behold,
Leaning on iron rails or stone,
The winter sun gilding the Salute.
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In this circle that I've drawn
I place the gentle ox's horn.
My life's all worship, praise and prayer -
I do not mourn, I do not care!
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I am the wind that rushes in your ears
I am the wave that wraps your island round
I am the water pulsing in your brain
I am the rock that jags your body's rock
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Where is now the wandering stag
And the drunken friendly faun?
The prophet wrapped in his woolen rag
And the hare that lives on the moon?
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A stag keeps walking in my dreams
He is not what he seems
...

I saw a red and hollow skull
That looked like blood upon my door;
It was perhaps some ancestor
Buried long since beneath the floor.
...