Three Poems by Paul Demuth

 

THE BALL BEARING

 

My best friend, Jim,

went back to the America for good

(his father changed his job)

 

He left me a bag of ball bearings

which, in the local playground’s currency,

you could exchange

for twenty ordinary marbles each

 

I rolled one out onto my hand

the globular reflection made me think

its surface was composed

of all the infinitely teeny points

of countless radii

diverging from its core

 

And to ensure

that one of those straight lines,

 

extending over sea and land

or even through the world's curved crust,

 

connected me with Jim,

 

I cupped the little globe

between both palms

 

 

MAGPIE

 

Before the manor house went up for sale,

The gardener pruned the cedar tree,

 

In whose cropped canopy

He noticed an abandoned nest.

 

When he removed the lid,

The trademark of that deft

 

Miscreant’s basketry,

A long since dormant memory

 

Awoke:

A tearful maidservant dismissed for theft,

 

Whose uniform, he now reflects,

Foreshadowed her unhappy tale,

 

Attiring her in the true culprit’s black

And white.

 

 

MASQUE

 

My face’s lower half,

Obscured in a tightly secured neck-scarf,

 

(Which, not so long ago,

Would probably have terrified the staff),

 

I told the Lloyds consultant at the desk,

Whose mask had slipped,

 

That one of her colleagues had asked me

To come back with I.D.

 

She then replaced her mask,

Which hid her grin, and quipped,

‘Do you recognise her now?’

 

And to and fro,

Between my photo and my eyes & brow,

Her brown eyes skipped.

 

Paul Demuth - I like the sound of my name ‘Paul’ because it chimes nicely with whoever I am.