The White Stag at Blackrocks
The white stag stands
two dimensional
between land and sea, sea and sky,
air and rock.
Whoever placed him there
'twixt myth and reality,
understood those boundaries
to which we must adhere,
taboos, thresholds
not to be crossed,
portals past that seamless, disappear
protecting everything the modern world has shed.
But on some moonless night, unseen he turns,
skips lightly through a crevice in black rock,
to dance with myths and legends and return
at first light to the sight of mortal men.
The white stag placed here just beyond our reach
for us to yearn for and to learn
the light and darkness
Storm in a Churchyard
I know alas
other storms will blow again
blattering loud and quaking deeper
like a freight train past the window
wakening the frighted sleeper.
This storm too shall pass,
its wind withering away,
its name eroded by time and forgotten.
But trees once felled,
their wood chipped and rotten,
will not grow again
This storm has split both root and stone.
Nothing remains where the grave yawns,
where the dead once rested peaceably underground.
The weather of the world goes raging on.
They grow no colder, hear no sound,
Linear City
ancient life turned to geology
in constant flux of reconfiguration
out of the strata a city emerged
slate, granite, shale
wrought of precious metals
titanium, copper, lead,
banded minerals
silicates, feldspar, vermiculite
from rare Earth elements
it drew its power
the metamorphic aggregates of time
igneous, sedimentary
the city borrowed shadows of the sun
stole reflections of the moon
defied entropy
until time’s full circle returned it
to the Earth
Oonah V Joslin was born in N. Ireland. Her first poetry was published in the school magazine. Teaching took over but she never stopped writing. For the past 15 years she has accumulated an online body of work which includes Flash Fiction from MicroHorror to humour, a Novella, 'Genie in a Jam' in Bewildering Stories and a her book 'Three Pounds of Cells' published by The Linnet's Wings Press. Oonah served as poetry editor at Every Day Poets and until recently, at The Linnet's Wings for a total of 12 years. You can see Oonah reading Almost on Brantwood Jetty, from her book, aboard The Steam Yacht Gondola in a National Trust video and follow her on Facebook.
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