Red Kite and Crow

 

Sat on brick dust cliffs

drinking the winey sunset,

as the low moon drifts

in bloody cloud, wine on the lip,

June fills up ruby roots and roses,

holly hawthorn hip,

with bloom and flame, and

opium poppy and sweet pea,

drowse and bloom

in the blowsy grass.

 

Below in madder seas

bladderwrack drapes the shale,

and above

the red kite flees the crow,

over burnt slate and rusty chimneys,

tides of flying seeds

and twigs crawling up the sky,

the red spreading flight

runs before a clattering black flap,

half its size.

 

 

 

Down Our Street

 

Down our street

dogs and children bark,

and when the rain huddles

on the tumbled-up houses

you can hear the quiet of their histories

in the puddles in the lanes,

in wet lilac dusks

and shiny moist evenings,

 

and when the silent sleet

muffles the glow of coal fires

I take my mind back

to a baked-white house

among scorched laburnums

where rain comes once yearly

and water runs warm from the tap,

set in heat.

 

While down our street

wet children pat wet dogs

and blow misty on their fingers.

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Jan Martin is an artist with three published collections of illustrated poetry inspired by landscape: We Are Here Between, Behind the Veil, Woods, Ways and Waters. Shortlisted for: Exmoor Society Poetry Prize, Burnham Book Festival Poetry Prize and Walk.Listen.Create Poetry Prize. Her work appears in various print and online platforms.