Poem

Ter Borch would know him, this latter-day companion
          of the cavalryman bowed on his mount,
shoulders and haunches sapped with exhaustion: and Sherman,
          bright-eyed, red-handed, a hellion to order:
and the mailed believers of Krak.

The music stopped

This had been expected.

Paintings were stilled

And books lay mute.

Torrid noon, I’m high in my mulberry harvest.

So, what is it with this tree? Lower branches, I click

quickly left or right – fingers safebreaker light

on the gorged capsules, and they detach,

drop, thuk and whole into my plastic bucket.

Yet from the tree-peak where the fattest fruit

clusters against the sun, O I must pinch

and wrest until the berries burst like bloodspray.

Her hand in mine

she walks looking back

at all the bright colours –

that’s a funny man.

She says what she feels

and teaches me what I thought I used to know.

The warmth of her hand

the sense that she will never let go,

even though her body

is twisting back to examine

a piece of glass with writing on it.

In ABR's seventh 'Poem of the Week' Stephen Edgar discusses and reads his poem 'Man on the Moon'.

Fold out evenings, chairs in the street.

‘See Iridium?’ Making out the satellite pantheon:

efficient gods that do return our prayers

(small voices cast across our desert spaces)

                                    like stars —

                                    like Clint Eastwood

                                    riding impassive

                                    through our networks of desire.

From here the Palisades are another country,

their brindled cliffs seamy with snow,

the Hudson in its Acheron vein between us,

a hawk patrolling its course.

hi friend im a guy who loves

deeply and cops love pounding

and still a nice rootable future

looking for someone needs arise

in a few words a besides the

all ex i adore

and a telephone number

woe betide my joys and sorrows

ill reply to all letters signed 68kg

uncut cop the reply letters all

hi guy woe im pounding i

adore ex cops and my

future nice guy friend im

the reply number arise needs

joys still im hi friend and deeply

ill i love someone besides a few

rootable sorrows and looking for

words i adore my telephone numb

er the reply cops pounding

the letters uncut and

ex looking words

Grennan takes another corded strand between his fingers,

moves it through a plane, then interlaces it to add dimension,

utility, beauty; then he takes a swig from his bottle,

This six a.m. moment
in the cool-blue cool
of early morning
is not eternal.