Carrickfergus For Mum's Anniversary

Down by the salley gardens
   my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens
   with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy,
   as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish,
   with her would not agree.

In a field by the river
   my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder
   she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy,
   as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish,
   and now am full of tears.
 
WB Yeats

Down by the Salley Gardens by WB Yeats

Don't Think Twice

The Galway Shawl

Christmas poem from Crucifox, published by Verve Poetry Press, @VervePoetryPres

Christmas Surgery

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
                              Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
                             From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
                             If I lacked any thing.
 
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
                             Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
                             I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
                             Who made the eyes but I?
 
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
                             Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
                             My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
                             So I did sit and eat.


Source: George Herbert and the Seventeenth-Century Religious Poets  (W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1978)

Love (III) by George Herbert

Advent Poem from my poetry chapbook Declare, published by Shearsman Books, 2016

Declare

The thing about Grace and Laura

First published at Bad Lilies (@BadLilies) Text here: https://www.badlilies.uk/geraldine-clarkson

betrothed to edwin drood

Apocalypse (Synopsis): 

A thousand starlings plop like gobs of tar
from corned-beef skies, for no apparent cause.
Then fish, with twisted fins, and six-inch scars,
turn up in private gardens and offshore.
Domestic pets climb rooftops late at night
and yowl, as if, despite themselves, they felt   
the pull of iron in their bloody bite—
a rankle or an itch below the pelt.
Grand beasts, like tigers, amble with their cubs
to play with ducklings fledging in the park;
soft-sheathe their claws behind the flower tubs;
excel at karaoke after dark.
Two-headed babies grizzle at the breast.
And tabloid hacks keep schtum—‘it’s for the best’.

GBC

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