Take Me (I�m Yours)

Dreams are made of backlit glances beckoning
under shade of flickerscreen lashes; taken
to bed, revised and fleshed out in velvetdark
room or moorland frisked with northeasterly breeze.

The air between us is thin and tastes of your
next words; crimson bordering on vermilion.
I discover your spine, push fingers steadily
from nape to crown, scent your hair with a wild
wreath of promises. You are made of enchantment,
history, the wicca man I glow lazily for,
awaiting the lick of your flame at my thigh.

Catch my gaze, hold its silver charms of chance,
leave me to consider the fleeting
iridescence of the kingfisher�s wing.

                                                Also published in Poets Gone Wild, Wild Poetry Press, 2005.

Secretary Birds

All but roosting;
resigned to their windowed cage.
Trilling to gods of soft furnishings,
St Joans of Persil and Silver Cross.

Preen and coo if it suits.
Maybe the occasional fluff
of disgruntled feathers,
the odd, plaintive squawk
before plumage is all smoothed down
for the night.

Unwinking, birdbright eyes, twenty twenty,
long for the coming of Icarus
and pray for sun.
Composed, till thrown some crumbs,
then its scratch and peck for yourself—
splitting their Leichnered talons in the dust.

Cine-projections for Romantics

There is frost in these afternoon woods, paths strewn
with the last of autumn�s brambles catch the unwary walker.
When she turns, his hand rests lightly on her shoulder,
a bird, maybe sudden shaft of sunlight.

She has listened to his meanderings, fairytales
shot through with passion; cobalt and violet, Persian silk;
seen his hands caress, evoke breath-heavy beat
through elegant bend of wrist and half closed eyes.

She would call him to her bed, magick kingfishers
from the blue of his intense eyes, teach him rhythms
only the enchanted and moonstruck know;
leave him to ponder the next verse.

It is too late in the year to gather roses.
Holly, fragrant twinings of pine-fronds would be a fitting
winter crown, to sit above the frail curve of brow,
on wayward, tangled winter wheat.

August

The dust road snakes before collapsing
at the whitewashed cubism of Toto.
Telegraph wires, too exhausted to hum
hang, in hot air�s silence.
The windmill is as still as death
and mottled dogs shuffle for shade
without waking.
Here and there, chickens scratch aimlessly
amongst shimmering oil cans and breeze-blocks.

After the Jukebox Dies

Older than the rememberings of most,
he flirts beguilingly with rosewood frets
as smoky dragons curl.
Boneworn fingers untangle
fathomless passions from sweet strung
tautness, the intricacies of wine
melt him into muezzin.
Whose eyes do not grow owlishly dark
at such call?
They come, circling;
almost primeval, almost stallions.
Flinching to the echo
of staccato hand-claps.

                    All of the above were first published in Barley's After the Jukebox Dies, Lulu Press, 2004.

                                                                                                © Carole Barley (Vienna)

Loch Raven Review Fall 2005 — Vol. I, No. 1
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