New Poem by Peter Robinson

Good news.  Eyewear today offers a new poem by one of England's best poets, Peter Robinson.


Current Affairs

            RECOVERY                                                                                     

Convalescent, by the Kennet side,

I see two raucous geese glide

down to a synchronized landing

through scattered waterfowl.

Cygnet nests built under wharves

or pendant willows in a row

hold tints for the late spring’s

promises of leaves

in branches’ blurs, a greenish yellow.

A Fire and Rescue launch goes by

and, look, that Ukioe print

has a swan stood on the current

absorbed in waves of its headlong flow.

            RED LINE ISSUES

The streets are paved with takeaway

wrappers, strewn sheets, cans,

and posters for elections …

Then faces come up in the dusk,

each with its private memory

migrant to that point.

Sun sets on brick and greenery.

More distant faces come —

those who’d struggled to get here,

others that hadn’t yet made it

and those who have, uncertain eyes

at checkout till or queue.

           

            IN THE DRIFT

           

Feeling fragile, a memory of health,

my old self rehearsed

in piecemeal efforts at improvement,

I find unreal expectations

blight even what we do;

and stripped beds, ring-fenced saplings

of a biscuit factory park

derive sense from resistless drift,

the incorrigible makeshift

doing then undoing things —

as if the body politic

had to get its health back too.

poem by Peter Robinson


Robinson just published a signed limited hardback edition, English Nettles and Other Poems with illustrations by Sally Castle, from Two Rivers Press. Available from: 35-39 London Road, Reading RG1 4PS. £15 + £3 p&p.