Gordon R Menzies

I follow the pale, silken river
of your outstretched leg
from the river mouth, where
your painted toes glittered
...

I've given up poetry

no more pulled faces, long
as autumn grey shadows,
...

Nestled there beneath her heart
listening to the waves crashing
with futility upon the curve
of her ribs, the sturdy piles
...

These last leaves between us, Mother
falling from our old family tree
your last few clinging in your winter
mine, yet coloured in my autumn days
...

when she wears the long blue shirt
she is a lost ocean I wish to name
hypnotic fabric wave over wave
white buttons mother-of-pearl
...

I have bared myself
a black wind blows
the night snow falls
falling flakes touch
...

We've lost the accommodating grin
Of a summer morning, the soft, derisive jeers
For we Anglers, our flies and our waders
With shoes wet with the morning dew
...

Silver leaves beneath the water
lay layered and unmoving
as though painted on the stream bed
discarded love letters, inkless
...

she strides the snow in sure-footed inclines
dog-led past juniper and slumbering gardens
her face in coyote fur like spring's promise
her blonde hair a solar aura, her smile
...

The time's tangible in glacial water
slipping from the mountain's shoulders
in torrent and rill, speaking volumes
and lifting our yellow rented canoe
...

It hung on the wall of our youth
a cheap, crudely rendered drawing
a little cross-street of cobblestone
wrought iron and purple flowers
...

All the greys of Reykjavik
the stone, the sea, the sky
all the greys of Reykjavik
our old love, and you and I
...

You thought I never loved you
since I only lingered in your scent
and wouldn't, oh I couldn't, stay
despite the time you'd freely lent
...

you traced the paper cover carefully
the white on blue of Bachman's book
thin and worn and probably stolen
cut the gull from cloth of ivory but
...

vast, and rarely still
the dark ocean of my heart
the many pebbled shores there
red surf splashing, hot,
...

She talks of hands
I speak of eyes, as though
I hadn't made a study of it all
surfaces and interiors, and
...

Shaded from the day, with
skins withered by the hot hands
of the demons they converse with there
and their eyes more empty than
...

She tells me that if I smoke it
I'll forgo her kisses this night
so, I think on it o'er a dram
consider its earthy brown
...

those lonesome nights
when the absence of you
in my arms is so keenly felt
and the wind and water
...

Crow couple stalks through sea-blown grass
where tiny white flowers are scattered like salt
a lone slender gull with the wind in his eyes
watches their progress and ours, perched
...