Wilderness

For Valeri Scherstjanoi

There's a bottle
on a pebbled shore;

and a bell,
kicking in the air;

a horn, harsh
as bark;

and an engine
in the constant wind:

there's a saw,
icy as a stream;

and a drill, white
as the sun;

there are the clear
peaks of a hammer

and the dark lake
of a voice.

 

[Untitled]

A question flutters, still green:
how long will litter seal to the ground?
What weight stops departure when
lightest leaves sprint with the wind?
Ringpull, acorn, styrofoam, fork –
easy to alter the fallen fact
or brook, quicker over stone:
for an eye's brief look, oil-unstained.
From refuse container, roof and drain
sparrows horde, their shapes then drowned
in bloom-draped bushes, to surface
faster then before, faster
than the fuselages from below,
exhaust-prints lost in the blue
sahara, undercarriages preened, sound
recoiling, body sucked sunwards –
a swelling, failing, recovering lightburst
squashes the space between the entrance gate bars.

Copyright © Alistair Noon, 2004.