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John Calvert: Some Poems

Occassionally, I'd like to be able to publish a few poems by friends. Here are some from fellow member of the Accrington diaspora exiled to Manchester by the lack of anything worth staying there for, John Calvert:

TOUCHLINE

Outside the penalty area
Trains went in and out
Embankment trees weren't letting on
Afternoon and all to play for
We lay on neglected turf
Studied hand and mouth co-ordination
Blurring to bramble and poppy
The city rolled back
July pressed the sky flat
My fingers eased into extra time
Your eyes drowsing toward blue
Through the grass the faint chanting
Point, and shoot and score


DESTRUCTION LAYER

Poke anywhere Rome superceded
Your spade soon taps into red
Iceni in the layer cake
Trace of icons kicked into touch
An emperor's features. hacked-off
Spun to cesspit
Temples run to ash and blood
Precincts squared in fire
Soil gagging screams
Vanishing queen goes civic
Burns hatred into marl
Scatters


CRY
(To the memory of Frances Bellerby)

Now at the core of night
The vixens howl over the nerve ends

Like nothing on earth
Mouthing your freezing fear

Far away the world drags
Across the ice of space

The broken blackness carrying time. Again
Your pulse beat tracing the warm

The stars will wait forever
The years are staring

You are being called
How will you answer?