Olaf Skyler - Five Poems
Arran
The boat’s metal gradient
cut the waves
to a web of foam.
Hills of deerskin
welcomed us
to the nestled nut
with wool forests
of pumpkin, beetroot,
the gold time brings.
When the sun struck,
black skeletons
lit up like X-rays.
Here rivers retake path,
the mountain’s blood
a stag-bronze,
rusting our boots.
Heathland is a burnt umber
squirreling through the seasons
and in the river
channels of light
weave spirals
to expanding coasts.
The ghosts of glaciers
swim around us
silently, hushing the
empty space
with clear water.
Isle of Arran, October 2015 (29th – 31st)
Dandelion Seed, August 2014 (1st)
At first I thought it Opiliones
until it was a seed.
Globed skeletal information.
That spark of philosophy
flew to my torso, hugged,
then humbled,
the thought gone. I left to grow
towards some other home.
Conker’s milk
Half a chestnut tumbled,
thrown from the fence-bushes
by a squirrel who may or may not exist.
The conker’s milk was drunk.
The fruity flesh remained ripe
despite the season of decay
which it isn’t. You can see in the autumn-all
how poison berries become miniature
fruit, crimson pomegranates, orange
-should-be-red-currants, brambles
of the singular mauve globule,
the eastern hemisphere of the moon
at day. The sky is blushing. A soft
Shhh anticipates the clouds.
On the kerb, leaf plus leaf
winks towards golden paper, to wake up
as shoots. Although the moon says half
-past it kisses
with cratering mouths full
of conker milk, and the clouds
ramble towards 7pm.
Muiravonside, January 2015 (2nd)
Moon – oval opal cloud
above the amber resin
seeping from the forge across
a divine blush bronzing
cotton-stalks, the gaunt
sleeping flowers – you
are the cove of a close road,
a long stretch downhill
to the river-place
of dancing dogs, and your
rain blooms when
we accomplish our return!
Chandelier Greenlight
Here, the bough,
muscle of the Earth,
extends into delicate fingers
and raises the chlorophyll goblet:
twigs like chandeliers,
chandelier greenlight.
Emerald, peridot, malachite.
A waiter’s arm.
A magician holding spring leaves,
what will be more flowers
and more flowers to come.
The road slopes up to the sky.
Bavelaw Castle Road, May 2015 (25th)
Rebecca Hawkes - One Poem
