MFreeZone: Robert J. Berry

READING
by
Robert James Berry
(for Ahila)

eyelashes dip on the open book
She is reading
will not look up

The words are printing tall tales
on the intricate lace
of her feather hazel head

Lean long wrist bangles
reach down
Turn the page
my page

She rests
then her eyes walk

A scarlet moon is rising from
the printed ink

Her ankles bracelets shake softly
This is for you to read

EEL
by
Robert James Berry

Wind bowls up surf
Sand glass sharp

Shelter under these knuckled boles
Watch cloud savaged open ______

After the storm
delicate red feet
pick to the ocean's musselpools

Wade
Down
into the rubberbrown arms
of sea plants

Salt garments of the drowned
Clutch rocks

Eel
stonegrey, a ribbon of gut
Sees

WALLED GARDEN
by
Robert James Berry

Painted pots bake on the gravel
The latch of the gate is
Hot to touch

Come in
Sticky fruit is falling

On a jar of jam
A wasp walks the sweet rim

Black cat
lavishes in sun

Water gathers in one corner of the garden
Stands Smells frog-green

Brown veined leaves are burning
Snakes hunger about the greenhouse

and a cold angel
Thinks
On the neat box hedge

ASHES
by
Robert James Berry
(for my Mother)

Swing the mattock
Slice the baked clay

Flints, chalk
The blade works through
marrow of roots
fashions the six foot plot

Cotton seals my mother's nose mouth

... Her rings favourite dress

I do not know you

earth sun-brown
rills onto teak
over final flowers

I am standing farewell
Then Tonight
Your lips still
Your mask chalk

FINGERPRINTS
by
Robert James Berry

Evening bleeds red
Into the skin the pores of the sky

Night's head is bent towards the slow wash of the sea
Her feet moving over the gravel

The Channel bills the land
The tide turns a shingled hand over the
Blue chin and black stubble of the sand

The salt grass old thorny bushes
and sudden crimson flowers
of the dunes
Then damp open scrub

Houses built here
Dark peat and kindle backed up
Driftwood burning acrid spitting

In all our homes
The heavy animal sound of the ocean's rollers
smothers us.

If I press with my fingers in the dark
They shall leave no mark.

E&OE