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My Life With Horses
My Life With Horses
Before I knew there were men
I galloped a pony bareback.
It was a hard winter, but
how sure-footed we were, resolute
in frozen emptiness, stamping
the ice with our...
Songs of a Quiet Woman
Songs of a Quiet Woman
lurching delicate as a snow queen down this street of greys
unfocussed exactly enough to miss the businessmen
goggling at my stocking deciding
(as I twitch primly into the...
The Farrier
Blessing himself with his apron,
the leather black and tan of a rain-beaten bay,
he pinches a roll-up to his lips and waits
for the mare to be led from the field to the yard,
the smoke slow-...
Esprit de l'Escalier
Esprit de l'Escalier
There's bits of sticky underlay
beneath my nails, splinters and carpet fluff
lodged in my hair - it's close-up work
requiring surgeon-like precision to maintain
the saw...
Morning News
Morning News
Spring wafts up the smell of bus exhaust, of bread
and fried potatoes, tips green on the branches,
repeats old news: arrogance, ignorance, war.
A cinder-block wall shared by two...
Timer
Gold survives the fire that's hot enough
to make you ashes in a standard urn
An envelope of coarse official buff
contains your wedding ring which wouldn't burn.
Dad told me I'd to tell them at St...
White Vase
White Vase
Two figures on a sofa, side by side,
The stench of bitter almonds, smoke and sweat;
A man who ate no meat lies with his bride.
Fresh tulips and narcissi cast aside,
A white...
Young Woman Gathering Lemons
The apronful sits on the swell of her belly,
that taut new world she merely borders now.
Above, a hundred pale suns glow;
she reaches for one more and snags her hair.
Citron, amber, white, a...
Eighth Period
Eighth Period
Last year's sexkitten, out of work again,
(mean effrontress, chased and bare)
saunters about the grounds with her great Dane,
as sandy blonde as that lassitude of hair -
boy-...
Eden Rock
They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock:
My father, twenty-five, in the same suit
Of Genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack
Still two years old and trembling at his feet.
My mother,...
Someone kissed me
Someone kissed me ―
Is it blood or lipstick
on my cheek?
Was it a thought
brushed past me
or a moth's wing
but there, those scarlet stains
on my skin, my white dress.
...
Timothy Winters
Timothy Winters
Timothy Winters comes to school
With eyes as wide as a football pool,
Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters:
A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters.
His belly is white, his...
How It Is
How It Is
Shall I say how it is in your clothes?
A month after your death I wear your blue jacket.
The dog at the center of my life recognizes
you've come to visit, he's ecstatic.
In the...
Icons
Icons
They are one answer to the human need
For a second life, and they exist for us
In the secular heaven of photography,
Safe in emulsion's cloud
Through which we glimpse them, knowing...
Malenki Robot
Malenki Robot
'Over there in the other country
my sister had daughters I've seen once
in forty years, nor visited my dead.
It's too late now, they're poor there,
and here I'm just an old...
The Same Gesture
There is a secret room
of golden light where
everything - love, violence,
hatred is possible;
and, again, love.
Such intimacy of hand
and mind is achieved
under its healing...
The Pattern
Thirty-six years, to the day, after our wedding
When a cold figure-revealing wind blew against you
And lifted your veil, I find in its fat envelope
The six-shilling Vogue pattern for your bride's dress...
The Immigrants
The Immigrants
They are allowed to inherit
the sidewalks involved as palmlines, bricks
exhausted and soft, the deep
lawnsmells, orchards whorled
to the land's contours, the inflected...
Secret Papers
Secret Papers
Something has splayed
the oak trunk in a dozen knotted tongues.
Nobody heard
the sound it made: would its song,
pure air and fire,
have split the ear?
Or...
Original Residents
Original Residents
We're back, walking through the garden
while you sleep - tutting over your decking
and water feature, parting the leaves
of spiked plants bedded in shale,
where...
The Russian War
The Russian War
Great-great-great-uncle Francis Eggington
came back from the Russian War
(it was the kind of war you came back from,
if you were lucky: bad, but over).
He didn't come to the...
The Seekonk Woods
I want to crawl face down in the fields
and graze on the wild strawberries, my clothes
stained pink, even for seven years
if I must, if they exist. I want to lie out
on my back under the thousand...
Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf
Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf
As soon as Wolf began to feel
That he would like a decent meal,
He went and knocked on Grandma's door.
When Grandma opened it, she saw
The sharp white...
Painting of a Bedroom with Cats
Painting of a Bedroom with Cats
The curved cane chair has dented cushions, the cats
Catch spiders and craneflies on the wardrobe tops,
The guitar lies in its funereal case, the road is quiet,
The...
Granny Is
Granny is
fried dumplin' an' run-dung,
coconut drops an' grater cake,
fresh ground coffee smell in the mornin'
when we wake.
Granny is
loadin' up the donkey,
basket full on...
Briggflatts
From Briggflatts
From I
Brag, sweet tenor bull,
descant on Rawthey's madrigal,
each pebble its part
for the fells' late spring.
Dance tiptoe, bull,
black against may....
Donegal
Donegal
for Ellie
Ardent on the beach at Rossnowlagh
on the last day of summer,
you ran through the shallows
throwing off shoes, and shirt and towel
like the seasons, the city's...
Dad
by Andrew Fusek Peters Children's Poems
Dad
He's a:
Tall story weaver
Full of fib fever
Bad joke teller
Ten decibel yeller
Baggy clothes wearer
Pocket money bearer
Nightmare banisher
Hurt heart vanisher...
Outgrown
It is both sad and a relief to fold so carefully
her outgrown clothes and line up the little worn shoes
of childhood, so prudent, scuffed and particular.
It is both happy and horrible to send them...
America
America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
America I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck...
8
If someone had said you passed away
this evening at 8, when my watch was still
an hour behind, on a few minutes to seven,
I'd be round for rituals with your loved ones.
We'd sip the last of your...
Poem About People
Poem About People
The jaunty crop-haired graying
Women in grocery stores,
Their clothes boyish and neat,
New mittens or clean sneakers,
Clean hands, hips not bad still,
Buying ice...
Immigrant
Immigrant
November '63: eight months in London.
I pause on the low bridge to watch the pelicans:
they float swanlike, arching their white necks
over only slightly ruffled bundles of wings,
...
