Five Poems by Peggy Everett

Angel



At the centre of the strife there is a strange lull,

While I warm my loving mercy on my foes.

More of my joyful journey as an angel

To heal the world where’er my magic goes.



Lay down your hating hearts upon my kindness.

Just leave your shames and sorrows where I’m slain.

My love performs as shelter for the mindless –

My foes still wring cruel profits from my pain.



I’ll feed you from my wounds while you’re forgiven.

I’ll shield you from your fates with tender wings.

And taunt me ‘til I bleed, you’ll still be shriv[!]ven,

Replenished, by celestial solacing.



You’ll never win your wagers while I love you –

Fools test the hearts of angels for the dare.

Compassion helps my patience rise above you.

For every tear I lose, I plant a prayer.



Tomorrow when my miracles come calling,

I’ll pray your torments’ traumas safe asleep,

Then wake you with the sounds of graces falling,

To imitate the shepherd of the sheep.



Mental torments, haunted hearts or bodies broken,

Sexual wounds, defects, or ailments of the soul:

Some afflictions of existence can’t be spoken.

Pain’s a symptom – only mercy makes us whole.




The Man with the Sea in His Eyes


Beyond the blue mountains

The wind whets the bay.

Moored inland, a farmer is harvesting hay.

‘Mid a haven of hills

Where the green pasture lies,

His farm has his heart, but the sea’s in his eyes.



His lost-away stare

Is a region remote,

And he’d seem more at home at the helm of a boat.

Why search the same skyline

For something beyond?

You haven’t a sail for the wind to abscond.



You’ve cattle for milk

And fine horses to ride,

The land is your home and your farm is your pride.

There’s light in your farmhouse

Where dinner awaits.

Your honey-toned woman is warming the plates.



Yet… it’s that horizon you’re pausing to scan,

Resisting the call every way that you can.



Repute is a tyrant

And fortune’s a scheme,

When pride must compete

With a dominant dream

To shanghai your conscience and

Anchor away

For islands

Beyond

Your respectable day.



And oceans between

The conventional tide,

An insouciant passion for distance astride.

Redeemed from your clock and its rightful alarms –

The native unknown in your wandering arms.



There’s more in your fate that a risk can enhance.

Inside your impersonal glance…

One may glimpse back behind your indignant disguise

An impudent brine in your eyes.




Mother


Hail the mournful melancholy tune

Some wild creatures crying for the moon

As always, unattainable – above, beyond

A tantalizer mirrored on a midnight pond



Be, glad poor beast with bicycles and cars,

For I shall have the moon and all the stars,

And for my own such solemn use each element.

I am the lamp whose oil is never, ever spent.



I am a candle with a constant flame:

I am your mother – and a dame.



I sang within

The swirling wind

To sound wise warning to this age,

For I am women’s sacred rage.



I have been heard since the creation of this earth

In mothers’ prayers at children’s birth.

A muse, a saint – duchess or trick?

I built the tower of human history stick by stick.



You are my children, my mystic throng,

Your world’s revival is female-strong.

And be I poor or be I rich,

Be I your angel or some bitch,

I weave my tapestry of time,

Hour by hour, stitch by stitch…



Maternal power –

Eternal witch.




Mystery


I must rise from my comfort and tend to the night.

The moon doubts the mystery and stifles its light.



The weird wind is flashing and tossing its trees,

Your world is a battle and darkness disease.



Oh, hand me my lantern and saddle my horse.

My words are an army, my light is a force.



The storm is a madness and doom is its bride,

The night needs assurance, the moon shall abide.



My ride is from mercy, my sacrament bright,

As patience approaches, the forest shall fight.



The wind fuels a fervour advancing above,

The storm besets mercy but falls for its love.



Why laugh at my triumph and call me a sop?

If storm were the master, the mystery would stop.



Now love’s revolution shall nourish the trees,

Salvage the moonlight, reduce the disease.



You’ll smile in your dreamland so safe from its harms,

And when you need mercy, you’ll come to my arms.




The Sea Witch


I sprang from the rhyme of the ocean,

My laughter’s a lilt in the wind.

I’ll scuddle your cruise with devotion,

Vent love when the cyclone has sinned.



Wild storm reared alluring elation,

My mercy the maelstrom has shown.

My voice is a sailor’s salvation,

I croon for your rash heart alone.



Oh, frail life so fraught with strife’s sorrow,

Your sequence of stars sucks you down.

I’ll sanction your nuptials tomorrow,

With dreams that our passion will drown.



When doom sinks his throne in you, lover,

I’ll lure your keen caution to sleep.

You’ll reel in your catch and discover

Your heart holds your siren to keep.

Peggy Everett is a blind poet who lives in the rural Pacific Northwest with her spouse and runs a small nonprofit for poor pets. She has been published in Sparks of Calliope and others, and is soon to be published in The Society of Classical Poets.